Resident Evil: Dead or Alive
by jazsharpe
Summary: This is my first published story on here. I'm working on a MLP one right now too. This deals with five teens who have to survive a zombie apocalypse in their small town that is caused by a Umbrella like inciddent.
1. Chapter 1

**Resident Evil: Dead or Alive**by Jaz Sharpe

**Chapter _One: _A Tale of Nightmares.**

**Date: 5-24-13**

Chaos. Beautiful. Chaos.

Another trigger pull; another demon terminated. I was starting to wonder if this nightmare come true would ever end. Behind me was Ian; his semi-automatic assault rifle was doing a great deal of damage to the horde. To my left was Renee; she was taking out as many as she could while dual-wielding a pistol and magnum. On my right was Drew with his MP5 in one hand and a frag grenade in the other. Our combination of different guns was the apparent key to our survival. We were at this point wiping the floor with the mob. Teamwork was a must.

"Hey, I'm running low on ammo!" Renee barked while slamming another clip into her pistol.

"What do you need?" I asked, kicking one of the monsters back.

"Whatever you got at this point." She replied.

I glanced over at the boys and quickly let them know of the current situation and that I needed some cover. I had Renee unzip my bag and snatch five clips for each gun while the boys did their best. She quickly re-zipped it and then got straight back to business. I spun around while taking my katana out then sliced two of our attackers in half before making the smart ass comment, "We wouldn't be in this mess right now if someone had remembered to park the get away SUV closer to the gas station."

Ian fired right back, "I obey my leader and parked where she wanted me to."

I chuckled and put my katana away, "There you go bashing on a girl again!" It was nice to blow off some steam. The horde's number kept increasing by the second. It was a wise decision to leave now; before we were eaten alive and crushed to death by the 'hungry'. "Make a path to the SUV now!" I commanded.

Everyone unclipped a frag grenade from their belt and chucked it into the chaotic crowd. The seconds ticked by slowly as we began to clear a pathway to our escape. Out of the confusion emerged the grim sound of barking. My heart sank deep into my chest and I realized we were doomed from the start. The grenades went off and a nice sized opening to the SUV 'magically' appeared in front of our eyes. Ian spun around and pushed me forward. We both booked it to his vehicle and were able to get in it without a scratch. Renee and Drew did their best to have the same results as we did.

"Hurry up and unlock it already!" I screamed.

Ian rushed to open the doors as the chaos drew nearer. At the last possible moment we hopped in and waited for our friends to arrive. Renee was lucky like us and made it while Drew began to disappear into the mass of bodies. The barking intensified and grew by the second as Drew pushed and fought his way through. He opened his door and threw his gear in when something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I spun to see the hellhound leap into the air and crash back down a second later with its newest victim. The sound of meat ripping and crunching bones sickened me to the core.

"DREW!"

Why did this happen to us? If only I could go back in time before this all happened…

**Date: 5-22-11**

It was a typical day in the lakeside town of Whitehall, Michigan. A cool breeze from Lake Michigan and White Lake blew in and cooled us down. The temperature was a warmer than normal ninety-two degrees, but it was a nice way to close the school year.

We were enjoying the sunlight and breeze at Shoreline Elementary's playground. Renee and I were waiting for the school to dismiss the kids so we could venture inside and say our final 'hi' and 'goodbyes' before graduation. It was all a total blast and for a small period of time we got to act like kids again and then relive our childhood memories while doing so.

Of course in our group was Renee. We had been best friends since sixth grade and we had even planned to have one big open house for both of us. She was a little taller than me, but was super skinny just like me. Beautiful, long, brown hair accented her hazel eyes.

In the big wooden clock tower with Renee was her boyfriend, Drew. He was a junior, but got to play 'hooky' tomorrow just to hang out with us. Most of the time he acted mature, but with us he acted just like a kid. Drew stood at exactly six feet tall and his body resembled a stick with noodles attached to it. The love he had for Renee was endless and it made a lot of people jealous; even though most of them denied that fact. Blonde hair, which appeared to look red, covered over his green eyes that looked through his glasses. Glasses helped him, Renee, and Ian all to see.

Sitting on a wooden boat not far from them sat one of my other really close friends, Sammi. She was also a junior and got to play 'hooky' along with Drew, even though she wasn't too amused that Ian tagged along. Sammi always wore her shoulder-length black hair in a ponytail and tried to dress like a ninja. Her bright green eyes perfectly displayed her personality, which was happy and super spastic. I was going to miss her dearly.

Not far from her in the smaller wooden clock tower was Ian. He was the oldest and had graduated from high school the previous year. Coming all the way from Chicago; he came to visit for the summer, but his main reason of his visit was to see me graduate from high school. Over the couple of years that we got to know each other, Ian had changed drastically. The most noticeable was his size, which used to be on the pudgy side. Now of days he was skinny with a good muscle tone to show. He wore contact lenses now and wore his emo-cut, shoulder-length, dark brown hair with pride. I had asked him a couple of times why he had it cut the way he did and he told me it was because of his favorite anime character. We had always been close with each other.

Sitting in the tower next to him was me, Jaz. I was the only one in the group that had lived in Whitehall their entire life, and it was a nice advantage. Because of that I knew where everything was and when to do stuff that the people in town would frown at, like going to the gas station less than a block away at three in the morning to grab a slushie. I had shoulder-length, multi-shaded, brown hair with reddish brown eyes. I was skinny, but because of my martial arts training, was also very tone with a body many boys at school couldn't avoid. I hated it sometimes.

Sammi stretched out in the boat like a cat, "Hey, does anyone know what time it is? My stomach is getting really hungry."

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Renee pulled her phone out then slid it open; beating Ian to the task, "Well, it's 3:17 right now. We only have five more minutes before Shoreline dismisses. I'm sure it won't take us too long to say hi to a couple of teachers, right?"

"I don't think it would, sweetie." Drew replied.

Ian yawned while stretching, "If that's the case, we can at least pack up our picnic gear and park the SUV up front where the entrance is."

"Sounds like a plan to me." I nodded in agreement as I slowly stood up. I stretched out and began to make my way to where our picnic table was. Everyone joined in and within a couple of minutes we had all our gear packed up and ready to be put into the SUV. We could see the kids leaving the school now; filing out in no particular order as the teachers ushered them to their destination. The kids seemed to be full of more energy than their educators. The sight made all of us grin as Ian opened the back of the SUV up. Our gear was handed over rather quickly as excitement filled the air. That was when Sammi spotted him; emerging from the forest not too far away.

"Jaz, look over there, there's a guy coming out of the forest." She whispered while tapping my shoulder.

My eyes glanced up to see what Sammi had spotted. She was right; out of the forest came a man that looked rather disheveled. At first glance, the man looked intoxicated because of the way he walked. With a closer examination we could see his clothes were dirty and ragged as if he came out of a hurricane or tornado. Something off the bat wasn't right about him I sensed. Everyone wondered what had happened to him.

"How many boos do you think he has in his system right now?" Ian snorted as he closed the SUV's back. Kids were still coming out of the school. My concern was automatically put on them.

No one answered for a minute until Sammi had enough guts to, "His clothing looks as if he was attacked. He might be hurt!"

"Ask him and see if he responds." Drew murmured.

Sammi nodded and asked loudly, "Sir, are you okay?"

All she got back as a response was a deep raspy moan. Something in my mind told me to keep away from the approaching stranger. Nobody else wanted to go over to the man either.

The closer he got; the worse he appeared and smelled. Decay drifted through the air and into our nasal passages fast and made a couple of us gag. My eyes focused and saw a ghastly sight. The man was covered in blood from head to toe basically and his clothing was destroyed beyond repair. What were once eyes were now white, oozing balls of jelly that had no iris to see through. Big chunks of skin and tissue were missing from his body, especially in the facial area. He had eaten his lips off basically and through a hole in his shirt was a rib that stuck out abnormally. Also the skin was much discolored. Any normal human being from just the injuries alone would have been in extreme amounts of pain, but not this guy. He just kept shambling over to us at a fast pace.

Sammi walked up to him and asked one more time very slowly, "Sir, are you okay? Do you need help?"

Another more animalistic moan came out of the man's mouth as everyone spun around in his direction. Fear slapped me across the face as I screamed over to Sammi, "GET AWAY FROM HIM NOW!"

My warning was too late though. She got near the man and took a very close look at him when he struck. Like a rabid animal he lunged for his prey, which was Sammi. His target was her throat and he wasn't going to stop until he had a bite out of it. Her hands pushed up against his shoulders and his arms tried to pull her in. We were frozen with terror until Sammi's shrieks for help snapped us out of the spell.

By then the two had wrestled each other to the ground and the man was on top of her still trying to bite a chunk out of her throat. I dashed over and kicked him in the side of the head. There was a sickening snap noise, but otherwise it did no damage. "What the hell?" I barked, preparing to strike again.

Sammi was ahead of me though.

The kick to the side of the head had distracted him for a second, which was long enough for Sammi to get her feet underneath him. She slammed her legs up, which caused the man to be sent up into the air. I then round house kicked him to the ground…

_**CRACK!**_

After I helped Sammi up I glanced over to see that the man that had just attacked Sammi was lying on the ground with his skull cracked wide open. It was a nice sight to see because it meant the stranger was not just dead, but beyond dead. The others rushed over and helped us to the SUV. None of the kids seemed to notice because none of them were left to witness the sight. Neither were their teachers, who were in the front of the school with them; helping them onto the buses.

"Thank God the kids didn't see that!" I croaked being rushed over to the SUV.

Drew was more concerned about us, "Let's get the hell away from here. Go to Jaz's house now!"

I looked over at Sammi to see her clothes were covered in blood. My heart sank from fear. "Did he hurt you?" I asked as I got into the SUV.

"No, I just got that bastard's blood all over me." Sammi said while jumping in.

Ian slammed on the accelerator as the SUV backed up. Everybody else jumped in and he pulled away; the man was still lying on the ground; lifeless. Renee pulled out her phone and tried to dial for help.

"What the hell was that?" Sammi cried losing her control.

I was shaking uncontrollably, "I don't know, Sammi, I just want to go home.

"We're almost there, just hold on guys." Ian said, turning onto Main Street. Even though he was driving over the limit and was endangering a lot of people's lives; Ian managed to make it to my house without any problems.

"I'm not lying to you ma'am, he's at the school right now! Please hurry!" Renee screamed. The operator was in just as much shock as we were. In the back seats, Drew hyperventilated, Sammi was crying, and Renee was trying to calm both of them down. Ian was able to park the SUV and jump out of it before he threw up onto the street. I pushed the passenger door open and booked it to the house.

"MOM!" I was crying the whole time.

She got off of the couch and ran to the front door, "Jaz, what's going on?"

I was only able to make it to the front steps before passing out from shock. All I remember was waking up twenty minutes later with Mum and Renee looking down at me. I was on the larger couch in the living room. Both of them were happy to see me awake and well.

"Ugh, what a nightmare." I shrugged while I pulled myself up. I looked outside and saw Ian up in the tree staring at me with a look of concern. He looked as pale as a ghost.

When Sammi emerged out from the kitchen in a new outfit carrying a bag of bloody clothes my heart sank down deep into my chest. I wanted to either puke or pass back out. I took another look outside to see Ian getting down from the tree outside and quickly make his way over to the house. By the time I had spun back around, Mum, Renee, and Sammi had surrounded me. Mum sat down beside me with a worried look upon her face.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

I frowned and shook my head, "I feel like the world I've known my whole life has just crashed down all around me."

"At least you're okay," Renee shrugged, "We had to run over to Drew's house to pick up his blood pressure medication. His poor heart was just about ready to pop open."

Mum handed me over a glass of water, which I chugged down without any hesitation. Slowly I got up from the couch and made my way over to the kitchen entryway before my knees grew weak. Ian bolted in and caught me before I plummeted to the ground. He helped me to the smaller couch and sat me down on it.

"Easy there, we don't need you passing out on us again." He whispered.

I nodded and propped myself up as he took the empty cup from my hands. He walked into the kitchen as Drew emerged from it. He looked just as flushed out as Ian did. He was talking to the sheriff on Renee's phone.

A minute passed by before the conversation ended and Drew updated us on the news, "Sheriff said he would be giving us a call in a couple of minutes. He said he wanted to have a word with us about the incident."

"They still don't believe us?" Renee asked.

Drew shrugged while giving her a hug, "I seriously don't have a clue on what's happening."

I nodded and tried to picture our police department doing an investigation on the 'incident'. A kid from across the street began to scream and I launched off of the couch to go see what was happening. Sammi ran over and sat me back down, "Easy there Jaz, the kid is just playing outside with his friends."

After I was clamed back down Mum went to go call Dad while everybody else took a seat where they could. Drew and Renee both sat down on the carpeted floor while Sammi sat on the couch I was previously lying on. Ian went to sit on the floor when I snatched one of his hands and pulled him back down next to me. He turned and gave me a smile before getting comfy. It took a minute for me to pop the question out to the crew.

"Do you guys think we should still go to the beach?"

Dead. Silence.

Even when my mum entered the room after her conversation with Dad, nobody said a word. I looked around and saw Renee nodding 'yes'. I gave her a small smile and nodded back in appreciation. Mum quickly picked up on the conversation.

"You all need to escape from this mess tonight. Go take a breather and have some fun, you guys are getting worked up too much." Mum replied.

"Are you sure you want us to go? What if something else happens and we're not here to stop it?" I asked.

She sat down next to Sammi and said what any good mum would say, "Don't worry about me or anybody else. You guys have been planning this since last year. Don't throw your plans out now. I'll give you a ring if something pops up, alright?"

"She's right you know," Ian whispered, "I didn't come all the way from Chicago to be worrying about something like what happened earlier. Besides it can't get any worse can it?"

Sammi gave him an annoyed look, "This isn't just about you."

"No Sammi, he's right," I shrugged. "Let's go do what we do best, which is having fun."

"Now we get to play the funniest game in the world; the waiting game." Drew sighed.

Everyone got a good laugh out of that, which we all greatly needed. It was weird to think that so much could happen in such a small time period. We all sat and chatted as we waited for the phone to go off. The negative emotions in the room seemed to magically vanish into thin air.

In my mind a small voice told me what had happened earlier was just the start to something much bigger. It was my sixth sense that most of the time tried I to ignore, but now I couldn't. I knew it was right, but like always I tried to doubt it and focused back to what was currently important; my friends. I looked over to each of them and saw the look of relief on their faces, except for Ian. He had the same look of worry that I did and that puzzled me greatly.

_What was he thinking? Did he know of our fate like I did?_

Only time itself would be able to show me the answer to that question. I was just hoping the answer would come sooner than later.

R.E 6


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter _Two: _Belief**

After thirty nerve wracking minutes of waiting, the call finally came in from the Sheriff. Drew quickly picked up Renee's cell as everyone listened with anticipation. The Sheriff's gruff voice came over the receiver clearly.

"Hello Mr. DeWeert, this is Sheriff Mahoney. Are you over at your friend's still?"

Drew looked over at Renee and then me before replying, "Yes sir it's just not me over, but everyone who was there when it happened. Do you need us to head over right now?"

There was a small pause of hesitation before Sheriff replied, "Yes I do need you to come over and meet me at the school where the incident happened, ASAP. Bring me the bloody clothes your friend wore too so we can use them as evidence."

"Alright, be there in five, Sheriff." Drew closed the phone and handed it back over to Renee.

"What's up Drew?" She asked.

He shook and lowered his head, "I have a really bad feeling about this."

Something deep in my mind agreed with him as everyone got ready to go. Mum looked worried until I rushed over to her and gave her a hug, "Don't worry about us; we're going to be okay. Besides if anything does happen I'm sure they'll give you a call. I'll send you an e-mail when we're at the dinner, okay?"

"Yea," she shrugged, "just be careful."

"I will. I promise." I smiled as we released.

This was the last time I would ever see my mum alive and also see the inside of my house. Mum was stronger than she looked and I always wanted to be just as strong as her. As I walked out the door my mind took a picture of the house and everything that was inside. I took the time to remember the smell of the apple crisp cooking in the oven, and where all three of my cats were at.

We made it to the SUV when I remembered something, "Hey guys, I know you're not the type to do this, but remember to tell the complete, honest, sincere, truth about what happened; alright?"

"What happened to us isn't something you would hear everyday on the news." Ian snorted.

I rolled my reddish- brown eyes as I got in on the passenger side, "I know some of those vacation stories you told me when you went to Barcelona could have been on the news."

My ears could barely hear the faint noise of snickering coming from the back where Sammi was sitting at and I knew Ian wasn't happy. A low grumble came from him as he started the SUV. The engine was silent compared to the music Ian had blasting. It was a metal band from Japan and the music perfectly fit his mood, which was at the time, was sassy and angry. He deserved to be put back in his own place though every once in a great while. For a couple of minutes I was able to take a break from the world around me and close my eyes…

"So, not to be rude or anything, but where are we going out to eat after this?" Drew asked.

Ian at the time was too 'focused' on driving to say anything. Sammi was staring off into space as if she was seeing something brilliant off in the distance, so she couldn't help make a decision. I turned to look over at Renee and all she did was shrug her shoulders; indicating she also had no idea where to eat at. There were quite a few options at my disposal and it only took a minute for me to come up with a good answer.

"How about we go to Gary's?"

Everybody turned their heads and stared at me; even Ian, who I thought was in his own world trying to not blow a fuse from frustration. They all looked surprised at my choice.

"Why there?" Ian asked raising an eyebrow, "We've never been there before. His SUV turned the corner onto the road that led to the school's playground.

I shrugged while looking around, "I have no idea why I chose Gary's. I thought you were in Ian land, Sammi was in her own world, and both Renee and Drew had no idea where they wanted to go."

"It's not a bad idea or anything. I was just wondering why you chose it. Gary's sounds like a plan to me." Ian replied.

The playground parking lot was swamped full of officers, detectives, and medical personal from both Whitehall and Montague. The famous 'yellow' tape was everywhere the eye could see. A shiver went down my spine as Ian pulled in and parked the Chevy Blazer the best he could. I was worried for once in my life about the law enforcement.

"Shit, this is worse than I thought it would be." Ian barked. After he parked the SUV we all slowly got out; with a million eyes staring down at us. From every direction I could see eyes glaring at us like a hungry pack of wolves waiting for its prey. I looked over at Sammi to see her face had grown ashen in color. She had a lot of fear in her eyes.

"Don't worry; just hand the bloody clothes over to one of the detectives when they ask, okay?" Renee whispered squeezing Sammi's hand lightly. Sammi nodded slowly and followed close behind me as our crew made it over reluctantly to the Sheriff. He looked rather unimpressive as he sat on top of his cruiser eating his food in a rather sloppy manner. The look clearly on his was of boredom and laziness.

"Sheriff?"

His dull blue eyes looked over and lit up as we walked over to him.

"Who's Drew?" He asked, shoving down the rest of one of the burgers he had down his gullet. My stomach flopped over in disgust from the sight.

Drew slowly walked up to him and raised his hand, "I am, sir. We brought the clothes like you wanted us to."

Sheriff burped and then slowly got up; brushing off any crumbs that had fallen onto his uniform. He walked up to Sammi with a small smile on his face, "You were the one who was attacked, right?"

"Yes," Sammi croaked, "I was the one was attacked." She handed over the bag to Sheriff and he took a quick look at it before throwing it over to one of the detectives near by. He sat down on his cruiser and pulled out another burger from the brown paper bag beside him. We were puzzled at first to what was going on.

One of his fat stubby fingers pointed over to the crime scene, "We need each of you to give a witness account for what happened earlier today."

I rolled my eyes and sighed, "We can do that without any hassle." Ian looked over at me and nodded with a sad look on his face until I smiled. We waited patiently as the officers walked over and dived us up to get our stories. The Sheriff looked like a monkey as we left.

_**::15 Minutes Later::**_

After we were all questioned about the 'incident' we were quickly ushered over to the crime scene itself. All of us were expecting to see the body still on the ground and a bunch of detectives taking photos of the crime scene, but to our surprise there was nothing there except a big blood stain. Sammi, when I looked over had a panicked look on her face.

"Where's the body?" I gasped with shock.

"Well," Sheriff sighed walking over to us, "we arrived here as fast as we could, but there wasn't a body here like you had claimed."

"That can't be true! We were all here; we all saw what happened with our very own eyes! Why won't you believe us?" Sammi cried out. She fell to the ground, but Ian caught her before she hit the asphalt.

Sheriff shook his head like it was all a joke, "We don't what you're talking about, but as of now we're placing you under-"

"Let them go Henry, besides they're all good kids."

Everybody froze and then spun around to see Chief walk over from his car. The man was just as pudgy as Sheriff was, but he held himself differently, like an actual adult would. He stood beside Ian and I then took the time to take a look at each of us; seeing if any of were lying. Sheriff began to whine then.

"There's no body Rick, something has to be wrong with their account. A body just doesn't get up on its own and walks away!"

Chief nodded taking Sheriff's point, "I know where you're coming from, but they just discovered a trail of brain matter leading back into the woods. They have a team of scent dogs on their way now from Muskegon."

Sheriff looked flustered, "How can that be?"

"I don't know, but I know in my heart these kids had nothing to do with it."

My eyes looked over into Ian's and saw the feelings of fear, anger, and puzzlement in them. I looked over at Sheriff then to see what his verdict was. He wanted to fight for his opinion.

"What if they did it though?" Sheriff reasoned.

Chief sighed and rolled his eyes. Sheriff was being very stubborn and arrogant on the issue. At last though, Chief was able to drive his point home, "They're honor roll students."

It took a minute for Sheriff to respond. "Alright," He sighed walking back over to his cruiser, "I'll let them go, but you owe me if something happens."

Chief rolled his eyes while grabbing his mini memo pad, "Whatever, Henry. We have a lot of work to accomplish, so stop sitting on your butt, eat the rest of your meal, and get some work done before the scent dogs get here." Chief looked over at us and smiled, "You kids can go now. We'll give you a ring if something pops up. Can I have your cell phone numbers?"

A tsunami of relief swept over us as Ian, Renee, and Sammi all gave their numbers to Chief. The second they were exchanged we bolted in a proper manner back to the SUV and hopped inside it. The sun was a little bit lower in the sky than it was when we first arrived. Joy filled the vehicle as Ian backed out slowly.

"I can't believe how lucky we were right there." Drew gasped.

I shook my head in disbelief, "We were so close to going to jail tonight. I guess Chief was either being really nice, or didn't know enough about us to know that we're all not honor roll students. Last I knew Drew was going to prison for trespassing and Sammi was close to being put into adult education."

Both of them glared at me for a second until they realized how right I was. Ian was shaking his head, but it was in frustration, not disbelief like the rest of us. "We're all very intelligent so just take a chill pill." He snorted.

I rolled my eyes and sighed, "Why must you always cut in like that? It's really a rude thing to do."

Before Ian could fire back Sammi shouted at the top of her lungs, "I DON'T WANT ANYMORE ARGUMENTS FROM EITHER OF YOU ANYMORE TODAY! YOU TWO SOUND LIKE A MARRIED COUPLE AND IT SICKENS ME!"

The SUV magically grew silent until our destination was reached. Gary's parking lot looked packed full when Ian pulled in, but he was able to park towards the back. We proceeded inside and the smell of breakfast and pizza hit our noses. My tummy grumbled from hunger and excitement. When I took a closer look to see who was inside my heart sank as the eyes and smirks from the football and cheerleading teams glared at us like we were pieces of meat. The football team sat in the middle of the dinner while the cheerleaders sat in the booths that encircled them. It was an odd sight to see them in place that was usually filled with the town's older folk. Their focus was drawn onto us the whole time as the waiter made his way over.

"Hi, are you guys here with them?" He asked looking over at the savages.

I chuckled and shook my head, "No sir, those buffoons over there are not a part of our occasion today."

He nodded with a small smile, "I got the perfect place for you guys to sit at then; right this way."

"Thanks." I giggled as he led the way to the back corner of the dinner where only the finest of the patrons ate. It was a great treat for us to take in. A light smell of fruit lingered in the air as so did the sound of light jazz music. Ian when I turned to look at him had the biggest smile on his face. We could only faintly hear the jocks from where we were now. We were seated and handed menus as the waiter took our beverage orders.

"Coke please." Sammi squeaked.

It took a minute for the next person to order. "Sprite, please." Drew said.

"Coke for me." Ian replied with a small smirk.

I grinned like a little child would if they were ordering, "Root beer float, please."

Renee smiled and then shrugged, "Lemonade please."

The waiter nodded as he scribbled the order down and then shuffled away to attend to another of the tables not too far away. All of us opened our menus and began to scan it over. So many of the items jumped at me; I didn't know what to choose. The cheese pizza seemed like the best choice of all until my eyes spotted Gary's world famous cinnamon rolls popped up. My choice had become quite clear then as I sat the menu down and waited. A couple of minute passed by before the young man returned with our beverages in hand. The root beer float, as I had predicted, made all my friends very jealous as the waiter sat it down in front of me.

He shuffled over to the table behind us and asked what they wanted to drink. It never seemed to end for him.

I shrugged spotting the jock table that seemed not too far away, "Look at those animals and how they eat."

Everybody spun around to witness the horrific sight of food being flung along with beverages. It was quite the commotion to see as the waiters and waitresses rushed over, trying to break up the fight that was ensuing. The boss finally emerged from the back and his face clearly showed his dislike of the jocks. His face was as red as a tomato as one by one, he personally picked up each jock and threw them out. By the third one, all of them; including the cheerleaders, were making their way out of the dinner. They were forced to pay five bucks extra a piece for their destruction. When it was all said and done the place grew very silent, except for the occasional laugh from one of the older patrons. We all felt really bad for the waiters and waitresses.

"What is going on in Whitehall today?" Drew growled, taking a big chug out of Sprite.

I shrugged as the waiter made his way over to our table, "I guess it's the end of the world as we know it."

The waiter's charm had vanished from the whole incident, "Can I take your orders?"

Renee nodded and answered, "Fish sticks with ranch, please."

He scribbled the orders down as we gave them.

"White chili for me." Sammi grinned.

"Cinnamon rolls, please." I said.

Ian looked over and grinned, "Spaghetti with garlic bread and meat sauce."

Drew shrugged and lowered his head a little bit, "Just some fries will do for me."

"That's not going to fill you up!" Renee squeaked.

"I'm not hungry, sweetie." Drew replied as the waiter took our menus. He left in rather a hurry and a couple of the other waiters began to clean up the mess that resulted form earlier.

Sammi brought up a good question then, "What the hell happened to us back there at Shoreline?"

The table went dead silent as our minds flooded with the replay of earlier events that we all wanted to forget. It took a couple of minutes for anyone to say anything because of how disturbing the event was. My mind tried to digest it, but I couldn't process what my eyes exactly saw. I ate a good portion of my float before looking over at Ian. His face was ashen and his eyes were full of horror.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked, lightly squeezing his hand.

Ian shook his head and quietly croaked back, "Not really, but don't worry about me, okay?"

I bit my lip and shook my head, "Come on, you can tell me what's wrong. Nobody else here will think of you in a bad way. Please?"

He shook his head 'no' and put his head down on the table. I looked over at everyone else and saw the same look on their faces, except Drew had a goofy grin to add along to the look. He asked us a question then.

"What if all of this was meant to happen to us?"

Ian's head shot up and the look of pure anger struck me with fear as I shook my head, "No way; something as awful as what we went through earlier today wasn't meant to happen. An undead man doesn't just walk out of the woods and try to eat its victim everyday, Drew. Why would you think something sadistic like that?"

Drew shrugged and lowered his head, "The government has hidden some really fucked up stuff from the public."

"Don't be silly," I growled, "This isn't like that show I watched when I was young with the two FBI agents investigating weird cases. This is reality and nothing harmful is hidden from us."

Sammi shrugged her shoulders then, "He has a point, Jaz. There was a case of a viral outbreak in Africa a couple years ago that the government hid until someone leaked out photos of the investigation. It wiped out an entire village in less than a day."

I frowned and looked back over at Ian, "The chances of that occurring here in a first world country are slim to none. Africa is a third world continent basically still. Thousands upon thousands of people die there everyday from illness."

"I agree with Jaz," Renee said, "That happened in a third world country. We're in America; something big like that just doesn't happen anymore. Remember that flu epidemic a couple years back? It only killed fifty people and everyone thought it was going to wipe out more than one hundred- thousand people."

"Let's not talk about this anymore, I'm already feeling queasy as it is and I don't need to be thinking about other illnesses at this time." Ian stuttered, putting his head back down on the table.

I shrugged while rubbing his back, "Just take it easy; the food is on the way."

Across the room emerged the waiter with our food. The grin on his face had returned, which at the time, was a very nice sight to see. He did look quite worn out though and from cleaning up the mess the jocks had made earlier I could see why. He sat each of platters down carefully once arriving and even got refills for anyone who needed one. The cinnamon rolls were enormous to what I thought they were going to be and yet again the look of jealousy swept across my friends' faces like wildfire. I dug in quickly, not wasting any time on eating as the others soon dug into their meals. The sweet taste overwhelmed me at first, but my taste buds quickly adapted to the change. No one said a word or a sound except for the occasional giggle here and there from Sammi. She was overtired and really needed a nap.

Ian at first hardly touched his food as if it was poison until I lightly nudged him from underneath the table. He looked over with a sad face which instantly transformed into a smile as he dove into his meal. Ten minutes quickly went by before my tummy screamed out for me to stop eating, which I gladly did. Out of the two massive rolls I only had half of one left.

"Darn, I'm way too full to finish this off. Hey Drew, why don't you finish the deed and eat it for me?" I chuckled.

He firmly shook his head as snuggled up with Renee, "No way, I'm not going to finish that thing off!"

Renee was very quick to poke him violently in the side, "You're going to finish that off or else; you're not going to the beach with us, and you won't get to play hooky with Sammi tomorrow."

Drew's eyes became pitch black as his face went ghost white. He realized that he didn't have a say in the matter and that it was best to give in without any further stubbornness. I shoved the plate over to him and he snatched up my leftovers without any hesitation. Drew seemed to swallow it whole by how quickly the remaining cinnamon roll was devoured. By then the waiter had made his way over with the check and everyone paid their equal share. Drew finished the roll and glared at me with a look of pure hatred, but I blew it off knowing he would get over himself soon enough. We made sure to give our server a big tip before making our way out of the diner. Much to our surprise when we left the 'monsters' were outside having a jolly good time with their stereos cranked up to the max.

"Shit." I hissed as we huddled around the diner's entrance. I snatched Ian's keys and bolted over to his SUV, knowing the imps wouldn't take notice of me. I unlocked the doors and hopped into the driver's side of the vehicle, which by the expression on Ian's face shocked him as well as upset him a little. They took notice of the group then when I turned the SUV on. Their eyes were full of hunger and thirst as a couple of them began to make their way over. I drove over as fast as I could and used the SUV as a barrier between my friends and my enemies. The crew got in; I moved over for Ian gladly as he climbed in.

"Don't do that ever again." He whispered with a wink, "Even though you kick ass at driving."

I smiled buckling myself in as he drove us away from the monsters. It would be the last time I would ever see them 'alive' again. My mind took pictures of their faces, so I could remember them as humans and not as monsters. They looked animalistic either way, but at least they were humans at one point…

My mind came back into the present as Ian pulled the SUV into his driveway. Everyone bolted out of the Blazer the minute he shut it off. We all rushed downstairs in the man cave that Ian had owned for such a long time.

"I hate jocks." I sighed racing everybody down.

Ian chuckled while lightly patting my back, "Hey after graduation this nightmare will be all over. I promise."

R.E 6


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter _Three: _Moonlight**

We hustled downstairs to the fortress that over the couple of years I knew Ian had become my favorite and least favorite hangout place. Not much had changed since my eyes had last seen the place last summer, but anyone who knew Ian could clearly tell that bit by bit his parents were claiming the downstairs as their own once more. Everything except for Ian's part was neat and organized. Sammi crinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out in disgust. She shook her head and I knew she wasn't too impressed with the sight. The rest of us really didn't care though as we all plopped ourselves down on the old, green, leather couches. Ian got back up though and waddled over to the mini-fridge and pulled out a bunch of juice pouches.

"It's freezing down here, Ian. Did you put the air conditioning on or something?" I asked, shivering.

He smirked as he took my hand and pulled me up while setting the juice pouches down onto the coffee table, "Come with me, Cinderella. I'll grab you a hoodie that'll keep you warm and happy for sure."

I sighed and rolled my brown eyes as he pulled me along to his room. Ian tugged me in and closed the door behind us; making me wonder what his real purpose for bringing us in here was. My eyes took a quick second to scan the room and saw it was somewhat clean, which was a rare sight to see since it was trashed every time I came over in the past. I walked over sluggishly and flopped onto the bed as Ian began to search his closet for a hoodie. The sweet scent of him drifted up from the blankets and pillows and made me smile as I remembered the many times of me waking him up in the afternoon to just hang out for a little bit.

"Why does your bed always smell so good?" I asked sniffing his pillows.

He spun around and smirked, "I'm just good like that, you know?"

I shook my head and chuckled as he searched a little bit more until he came upon what he was looking for. He pulled it out and then playfully threw it at me. I picked it up and was surprised at his selection.

"Ian, this is your red hoodie; you love this thing to pieces!" I gasped throwing it on. It went well with my black short shorts and red tank top. Underneath that was my black bikini that had rainbow-colored hearts all over it. The minute I threw the hoodie on I stopped shivering and felt very comfy in my surroundings.

He shrugged at my statement with a big smirk, "You can wear it for now."

Outside where the couches were I could hear Drew squealing like a little girl while everybody else laughed at him. I was wondering what he was up to…

I realized then what Ian was attempting then, "If you're trying to woo me right now; you epically fail." I got up and made my way toward his door then.

Ian jumped in front of it though with a big smirk on his face along with an arched eyebrow. "I'm pro, remember? I can do whatever I want and you can't do a thing to-"

His statement was interrupted with me kissing him right on the lips and then walking out of the room as if nothing ever happened. Hopefully that would be a good enough of a response for him. I closed the door and then proceeded back over to the couches and sat down next to Sammi. She rolled her eyes as she saw me and what I was wearing, but I didn't really care about her opinion at the time. I joined in on whatever Drew was making us watch him do for a little bit until Ian stumbled out of room with a flustered look on his face. He was clearly blushing too.

"So what do you guys want to do right now?" He asked walking over to where we were at. He slowly sat down next to me and lightly placed his hand onto mine. Being stubborn as I was though I quickly moved it onto my lap and gave him the look; daring him to place his hand back onto mine again. Nobody answered at first until Ian whined, "Come on guys we can't just sit here for an hour and do nothing!"

Drew smirked and leapt out of his spot on the other couch and then made his way over to Ian. Ian didn't know what was going to happen until Drew jokingly began to strip dance for him. Ian was quick to push Drew away and Drew quickly sat back down as everybody made a couple of smart-ass comments before the choice was made.

"How about we watch an anime? I'm sure you have something perfect for this occasion!" Sammi snorted as she rolled her eyes.

Ian ignored her attitude and was glad to watch an anime. He smirked and clicked the TV on and then clicked the computer on. No one knew what he was going to choose as he went to an anime sight and clicked on a show. His choice was quite a surprising one. He clicked the lights off as the show began.

"I love Pokemon; don't you guys?" He chuckled relaxing on the couch. I could feel his hand slowly go onto mine again, but this time I let him do it.

After a little over an hour of watching Pokemon, the time came for us to leave to the Montage Pier. The time seemed to go by so fast that at first no body wanted to go. Slowly though like a bunch of turtles we got up and made our way back upstairs. Of course Ian and I were the very last to go because he wouldn't let go of my hand. It was annoying at first until with my bony finger I jabbed him in the side. He quickly let go and a small snicker escaped his lips as we left. The clock in the living room showed that it was sixteen minutes past seven, yet the sun was shining as if it still was the middle of the day.

Out from the living room trotted up Ian's loving dog Belle, wagging her tail happily as we entered. No one could resist her and she soon was petted and loved upon until she was on her back and we were rubbing her tiny belly. She seemed to know we were going and had a sad look upon her little dog face until Ian's parents emerged from the patio in the backyard. Both of them looked happy and relaxed as they rushed over to see us.

"Going to the beach already? You didn't even say hi to either of us!" His mom joked.

Ian shrugged while nodding, "We had a pretty messed up day today, Mom. You don't need to know what happened."

His mom raised and eyebrow and gave him the 'mom' look then, "What happened, Ian?"

"We…were attacked by…a … stranger and he…tried to bite me." Sammi said frowning.

His mom's eyes opened with shock, "What?"

Sammi and I went into the long explanation then of our day and what occurred at Shoreline. Ian's parents at first wanted us to stay at the house for the night, but then both agreed it was best for us to go. His dad looked furious, but then quickly cooled off by asking me how my dad was doing.

"He's really busy with work now of days, "I said shrugging, "He got a major promotion two months ago so when he's not at work he's at home sleeping or lounging on the couch."

"Is he doing anything tonight?" He asked.

"No, you should call him and see if he'll come over for a bit. Maybe my mum would want to come over too." I replied.

"Good idea, we haven't hung out since the Super Bowl this past winter. Baseball's on tonight anyways."

While we were talking and getting everything set up for him and my pops, Ian's mom was checking up on Sammi and seeing how she was doing. Everything was going perfect as she finished and rushed over to me and hugged me.

"How's my favorite future daughter-in-law doing?" She asked as we released.

I blushed and quickly replied back, "I made it onto the Jazz group for GVSU."

"That's great! What instrument are you playing right now?" She asked.

I grinned and looked over at Ian, "Anything they'll let me play. I got a full scholarship there for all four years."

Ian looked surprised as both of his parents rejoiced. "That's great, Jaz! So are you doing anything this summer?" Ian's mom asked.

I shrugged with a little sigh, "I have no idea what I'm doing at this point to be honest."

The room was overflowing with cheer and laughter until Renee used the Blazer's horn and honked at us. We all laughed; just noticing that both Drew and Renee were already in the Blazer, ready to go. We said our goodbyes to his parents and reluctantly left; wishing that time would allow us to talk for a little bit longer.

"It was good to see your parents." I said to Ian as I hopped into the SUV.

"Yea, they really missed you; a lot." He said hopping in.

If only I knew that it would be the last time I would ever see them again. Everybody buckled up and we hit the road to our destination. The SUV drove along; from downtown Whitehall to downtown Montague while listening to Ian's all time favorite band, Matchbox 20. He sang along loudly as he pulled onto the road that would lead us out of Montague into the farmlands.

"So Renee, what are you doing once you officially graduate from Highschool?" Drew asked.

I turned around and saw Renee laughing, "I told you silly a thousand times already! I'm going to community collage to get my basics and then I'm heading to MSU because I have a huge scholarship there."

Everybody except for Ian laughed at her response as the scenery transformed into farmlands. It was a pretty, but very familiar sight for all of us as the sun began to set.

"I can't believe it's eight already!" Sammi gasped.

"At least they'll still be sun out when we get to the Pier." Renee said looking outside at the scenery.

By then I had already closed my eyes and began to doze off; enjoying the time I was having with my friends. The fantasies of future at college floated around my head as their discussion continued and Ian sang along to his favorite tunes.

Fifteen short lived minutes went by before the SUV slowed down to make a turn; indicating we had arrived at our destination at last. I slowly opened my eyes and looked around; noticing Ian looking down at me with his signature smirk. The Montague Pier was deserted for some weird reason, but we didn't care and Ian parked the Blazer right up in the front of the parking lot. The pier looked amazing from where we were and we were not even outside of the vehicle yet. The sunlight hit the water perfectly and made the water seem to shimmer.

"Can't we just wait to set up and jump into the water now?" Sammi whined as everybody got out.

Ian shook his head as he opened the back of the Blazer up, "You can do whatever you please, but don't come crying to me when you're not allowed to sleep inside of the tent tonight."

Sammi's green eyes went pitch black then, "You get to sleep in the tent though and you're not going to do a thing."

Ian's eyes went pitch black from anger, "If you dare make another smart ass comment about me then you can kiss your 'hooky' day goodbye. The last thing this group needs is someone who is going to ruin our fun."

Renee snapped right back at both of them, "If you two would both stopping like exes and act mature for once then maybe we could actually have some fun instead of hearing you two bicker at each other. "

Both of them turned and glared at Renee. She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in frustration.

"Can we all get along for once?" I hissed looking at all three of them. The Blazer went dead quiet until I hopped out of it and sprinted over to the edge of the pier's ledge. I quickly climbed over the edge of it and let my feet dangle off its rail.

"Jaz, what are you doing?" Renee asked.

My head spun around and I frowned, "I'm going for a swim, why do you ask?"

"You can't swim though." Ian pointed out rushing over to me.

I shrugged and lowered my head, "So?"

"Why do you want to jump in?" Renee asked.

"I just want to escape all this drama. I thought this trip would be worry free, but now look at us; we're basically ripping at each other's throats." I sighed.

Renee shook her head and reasoned with me, "That doesn't mean you just give up and walk away."

I nodded and slowly climbed back over, "You have to be so caring and loving, don't you? If anymore of this happens I'm so going home."

Ian helped me down and both he and Renee gave me hugs. When we walked back over to the Blazer Sammi and Drew were unloading its back. We helped them and then set up our camp for the night. I rushed back and forth unloading anything I could. After everything was unloaded Ian set up the tent and we got everything into place. When we finished our set-up there was only one thing left to do; go swim in Lake Michigan. The race was on for who could make it into the water the quickest. Of course because of his long monkey legs Drew was the first one to arrive at the beach, but he froze once he got to the water's edge. It puzzled Sammi and Ian a lot.

"Why are you not going in, Drew? The water's seventy degrees warm!" Ian asked as he stripped down to his swim shorts.

Drew frowned and then sat down, "I hate water."

Ian looked shocked, "Really? Jaz can't swim and she still goes into the water!"

"It's okay," I sighed while stripping down to my bikini, "he can watch us from the water's edge."

Sammi was the first one to make it into the water. She screamed for us to join her in the water as Ian dived in and made a big splash; getting Sammi all wet.

"Hey Jaz, it's the Red Lemur!" Sammi cried out, splashing him right back.

I sprinted in and quickly caught up to her while dodging Ian's tackling attempts. My body enjoyed the water's warmth and coolness as I went deeper and deeper in. It was nice until two very similar arms wrapped around my waist. I spun around, but couldn't escape his arms. He took my weight as an advantage and lifted me out of the water.

"Time to go and take a dip, Jaz." He chuckled making his way into deeper water.

I was shrieking like a little girl the whole time, "This isn't funny Ian, put me down!"

Everybody else laughed at me as the water's level reached his neck and my neck. In my mind I was panicking for my life. Ian carefully shifted me onto his back and it wasn't too scary. My head was clearly above the water and I knew Ian was a good swimmer from Band Camp my junior year. That's where his nickname, the Red Lemur, came into from. His body was an oven compared to mine, which was an icicle. Renee swam by us slowly with a big grin.

"See, this isn't too bad." Ian chuckled.

I shrugged and looked around at the beauty of Lake Michigan. It was a pleasant sight to see the waves around me; calm and full of color as they gently crashed against my friends and I. My head rested on Ian's as he swam around enjoying the nice weather. Sammi wouldn't leave Ian alone at first as she mocked his Red Lemur form. Renee joined in for a bit and I almost did as well until I realized that if I did I wouldn't be on Ian's back anymore and would quickly have to learn how to swim on my own. I was too lazy to join in and decided it was best for me to take it easy for the time being.

"We're going down!" Ian screamed as he plunged down deep.

I gasped in a big breath of air as we submerged underneath the waves and into the water below. My arms and hands clung tightly to him as we descended deeper and deeper down. For some odd reason I didn't feel panicked in any way until my air supply began to run low. I quickly tapped his shoulder and could feel him glide up back to the surface. We surfaced back up to hear Renee and Sammi laughing at us.

"You guys are so cute together!" Sammi joked as swam up to us.

Ian grinned and began to laugh himself, "Jaz is as light as a feather!"

Renee grinned and high-fived me, "That was awesome what you two both did right there."

"You didn't freak out on me!" Ian said as he squeezed my legs.

I sighed resting my head on his once more, "Look at your shoulders and you'll see why I didn't." On each side his shoulders were impressions made from my arms and hands as I clung tightly onto him. He appeared to be really happy with it.

"I'll miss all of this." I sighed looking around.

"Why?" Ian whispered.

I smiled and took a quick glance over at the sun, which was setting very slowly in the sky, "There isn't a Lake Michigan in London."

"This will be the last time most likely that we'll be together like this." Renee said.

"This sucks." I said, holding back tears.

"Don't cry now; we're supposed to having fun right now, remember?" Ian whispered.

"Sorry," I chuckled looking away towards the setting sun, "it's just that you never know what you have until it's gone." He smiled and nodded at my statement. As the sun set behind the horizon I took the time to look back at my life and enjoy the good and bad events that took place. A little after the sun set the sound of my stomach growling startled me and caused Ian to chuckle.

"Sounds like someone is getting hungry already!" He joked, beginning to swim back to the shore.

Sammi swam over and splashed Ian in the face, "She's not the only one getting hungry here!"

Renee smirked and began to swim back to shore, "Last one out has to set up the bonfire wood!"

All of us charged to shore then and ran up to where our camp was. The fire was already going because Drew had left early to start it. We were treated to the nice surprise of Drew jumping into Ian's arms. Ian threw him off and grabbed a package of hot dogs while Sammi grabbed the sticks. Renee grabbed a sandwich and began to munch down upon it. I grabbed my birth control and iron medication and took it without anyone looking.

"Today was one hell of a way to end the senior school year of high school." I sighed looking over at Renee. I grabbed a hot dog and stabbed a stick through it.

Renee frowned as she finished off her food, "You're telling me. I hope it'll get better soon."

"Let's make a toast now to you both graduating." Ian announced as he raised his can of pop into the air.

Everybody smiled and raised their glasses high (or in this case cans of pop) and made a toast to our future. It lifted everyone's moods and after we ate we ran around the beach for a bit before heading back to the bonfire. By then the fire had died down a great deal and Drew was very quick to bring it back to life. We told stories for a bit until it was decided that it was bedtime. The girls ran off to take our nightly showers as the boys took the opportunity to have some alone time. The warm water was soothing as I cleaned away the sand and dirt from the lake and readied myself for next day's activities. As each of us stepped out and dried off, we wondered what the boys were exactly up to. I was the last to leave; making sure I smelled as good as possible since I was wearing the same outfit all day tomorrow. The minute I left I turned around to witness Drew and Ian run in like little kids. Ian looked over at me with a big smirk as they both disappeared.

When I made it to the tent Sammi and Renee were already in their sleeping bags hunkered down for the night. "I thought you guys wanted to have a dance party before the boys came back." I joked while putting my shower gear away.

Renee was laughing from underneath her sleeping bag, "Didn't we dance enough earlier?"

I smiled as I flopped onto my pile of blankets. My body burrowed underneath them a great deal before the darkness and warmth enveloped me as I drifted off to sleep.

**Date: 5-23-11**

_**::Later that night::**_

"Jaz, wake up."

Out of my deep slumber I slowly awoke as my eyes fluttered open. I stretched out and yawned before asking, "What is it?" When I finally could see who was above me I sat up; letting my hair go as it pleased. It was Ian; with his glasses on and with the look of pure joy on his face. He smiled over at me and held his hand out with a caring look in his eyes.

"Will you go on a quick walk with me?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

It took me a second to reply, "Sure, where are we walking to?"

"Just to the edge of the pier and back." Ian replied as I carefully took his hand and was helped up to my feet. Automatically I shivered from the temperature difference until Ian found the hoodie I was borrowing from him and tossed it over to me. I took it gratefully and slipped it on before grabbing one of my blankets from the pile. I quickly realized that a cold front must have come through. He grabbed one of his shirts and put it on before taking my free hand and leading us out of the tent. Everybody else was asleep, which made it easier to slip out without feeling awkward.

There was a semi-cool breeze blowing from the lake and it brought in the smell of fresh water to my nose. It was very peaceful and relaxing as we walked down from our camping spot to the Montague Pier itself. We made it to the edge of the pier and I threw the blanket onto the cement. We both settled down then; snuggling up with each other underneath the stars and the light tower that was used to mark where ships could enter at. I found my head to be resting on top of Ian's chest as his hands rested on top of my back. They would every once in a while rub my back and soothe any sore spots I had acquired since the last time he had massaged my back.

"What happened to you over the school year?" I asked quietly, "You haven't acted like this since my sophomore year of high school."

I looked up and saw him smile, "Chicago is a land full of surprises."

I smiled and snuggled up closer to him. The sweet, pleasant smell of him drifted into my nose. Out of the blue then he asked me, "What happened to you earlier this year?"

My heart skipped a few beats then from fear as I buried my face into his warm chest, "It's a very long story I don't think you want to hear right now."

Ian took my face and carefully lifted it up so I could see his face as he responded, "I do though because I want to know how much pain that bastard put you through."

I shrugged and began my tale,

"It was the summer of last year and you had just left for collage. It was a warmer than normal summer night in Whitehall and I was in the middle of dozing off when a loud noise jolted me out of sleep. I leapt out of bed and walked over to the window and looked through it. There was nobody there, so I went back to sleep. A couple of minutes later there was another loud noise and I jumped out of bed again, but it was too late. I was tackled to the ground by someone who was bigger than me and I couldn't do a thing to stop them. By the time I was able to spin around the stranger was strangling me already. I had one chance to strike back and I used it to my fullest ability. MY hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed a pair of scissors from not too far away. I stabbed the intruder in the chest and shoved them off and stumbled onto my feet. They grabbed my legs and dragged me in then and ripped their jeans off. I saw his face then and couldn't believe what was happening until it was too late. I was able to stab him again and he fell over; unconscious. By then the noise had woken both my parents and my brother and they were there to help me up. Sometimes I wish he had finished his job so I wouldn't have these scars to remember him by."

By the time I had finished my story I was balling as the pain of those memories had resurfaced to haunt me once more. Ian held onto me tightly as I cried my pain out. A couple of minutes passed before I was calmed down enough for Ian to speak up.

"I'm sorry I asked you what I did. I didn't mean for you to relive what happened again." Ian whispered.

I shrugged and snuggled up to him a little more, "It's okay Ian, I needed to release that pain at some point, or it would have eaten me up. I heard he's at home still as a reserve, but I haven't seen him since; which is a blessing in my eyes."

Ian nodded and carefully stroked my hair, "I can only understand the pain you went through a little. I went through hell when I arrived in Chicago and to this day I don't know how I survived. I wish you were there to help me."

I smiled and looked up at the starry sky, "I would never want any of my friends to go through what I went through. I'm happy you're back to your old self, Ian. I was really worried about you last year. I thought you were never going to be this way again. Everybody missed the old you."

He shrugged while lowering his head," To be honest I was going to stay that way, even if everybody hated me. Last year I was so cocky and arrogant that I thought the new me was the best thing ever to happen to me."

"Is that the only reason why?" I asked looking over at him.

He paused for a moment before turning his head up at me and replying, "When you and Ben broke up your sophomore year I blamed myself for what had happened. When you came crying to me for support I didn't know how to react or how to support you. I became selfish and decided nobody could ever have you; including myself because I knew I was never going to be good enough. From that I sunk into a deep depression and over last this past summer I transformed into what I was my senior year. We tried to date, but I shut you out because I thought I could do better and I lost almost all of my friends."

"You kept your promise though in the end," I whispered, "When I was about to break you came and raised me out of my darkness, like a true friend would do. You hadn't completely changed after all."

"I guess your right." Ian grinned, "Even though I was slowly falling apart on the inside I still cared and loved you dearly. The promise we had made each other your sophomore year never failed and is still strong."

I smiled and leaned in a little. His hazel-green eyes lit up as my smile transformed into a smirk.

"So about earlier," Ian asked leaning in, "what was you response supposed to mean exactly?"

"I don't know, what do you think it meant?" I chuckled, leaning in a little more.

He smirked and also leaned in, but because I was so difficult and playful I pushed him back and scooted away a little. Ian took it as a 'fun' challenge and crawled over to where I was at. His eyes were full of the lively flame I had missed for so long.

"You're still hard to get, aren't you?" He chuckled flopping down beside me.

I grinned enjoying the humorous moment, "I'm the pro in these kinds of situations after all."

Ian took it the next level then as he picked me up carefully and placed me gently down on top of his chest. It was very warm and soft compared to the cement and every time either of us moved his scent would rush up into my nose. It was spicy lavender with a bit of pine. I loved it and snuggled up as closely as I could to it. His chest rumbled as he chuckled then, "I bet you can't beat what I just did!"

My reddish brown eyes gazed up and I slowly moved my head up to his. I slowly brushed my lips up against his and allowed him to reach for the kiss, but I backed away and rested my head back on his chest.

"I think I just beat you." I chuckled snuggling up to him.

I could hear him sigh as we both looked up at the starry night sky. My eyes began to flutter close as the darkness enveloped both of us. In the back of my mind I doubted if he was going to stay his old self because I had become so used to the new him, but I did the best to enjoy every second that he was. A couple of minutes went by before anyone spoke a word.

"Hey Jaz, can I ask you something?"

I opened my eyes and smiled, "Sure Ian, go ahead and fire away."

The question was a surprise, "Have you ever regretted doing something before?"

"Yea," I whispered, "why do you ask?"

He shrugged his shoulders before replying, "It's nothing; I was just asking. We better get some rest; tomorrow is going to be fun."

I nodded my head and closed my eyes, "I'm too lazy to get up right now, and can we stay here for the night? I don't think we're going to be spotted from where we are."

Ian softly chuckled squeezing me lightly, "I guess we're stuck here, eh? Well whatever works for you I'm fine with it. Night, Sunshine."

I was grinning so much as I slowly closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep; wondering what the next day would bring.

**9 am**

"Jaz, wake up."

My eyes slowly opened to see Renee standing above me with a very distressed look on her face. I looked over to see Ian was still sound asleep with one of his arms wrapped tightly around me. I became concerned and asked Renee what was going on.

She looked down at the ground for a second and then looked back up. Her expression had changed to a very worried one as she handed her cell over to me, "My mum left a message at around 9:30 last night; you need to hear this closely." She pressed a button on the phone as I took it and listened in very closely as the message played. Automatically I could recognize the voice to be Renee's mum, but was shocked by what was said. "Renee, this is your mom speaking. Look, I don't have much time to say this, but I need you to come back and pick up Kaitlyn as soon as possible. There's been an incident in town and we can't get to her right now. I love you so much, Renee, and I hope to see you soon."

I gave the phone back to Renee in complete disbelief as a flag was raised. "Are none of your vehicles at the house running?" I asked.  
Renee shook her head as she slipped the phone into her side pocket, "The cars are fine, Jaz. My mom has never sounded so panicked before in my whole life and she's never said I love you over the phone like that either. Something horrible must be happening in Whitehall. We need to go back there; now."

I shook my head in agreement and tried to get up. Ian wasn't budging in the least bit and I had no other option but to shove him away. He rolled a little and began to wake up as I leapt up and quickly followed Renee back to camp. As I arrived back to camp Drew was making breakfast and Sammi was in a great rush to get everything packed and put back into the back of the Blazer. Renee and I quickly rushed over and gave a helping hand. By the time we had finished Drew had all of our food ready to go and was packing up all of the cooking supplies.

"When did you wake up?" I asked Renee as I grabbed a plate of food.

Renee shrugged her shoulders as she received her plate of grub, "I woke up twenty minutes before you did because I had to go and pee. I got done peeing and went to check my phone when the message popped up. Then after I heard it I got the others up and came to get you."

Ian walked up then with a very confused look on his face. "What the hell is going on here?" He mumbled still trying to wake up. I ran over to him and gave him the details of the message that Renee received. He grabbed a plate of food and swallowed it whole basically before saying a single word.

"Shit, I hope they're okay." He said wiping his mouth with a napkin.

I finished off my food and grabbed his empty plate, "Do you think it has to do with what happened yesterday?"

Everyone froze in silence then. I wanted to take my question back so bad as the same thought crossed everyone's mind and was displayed clearly on all of our faces. We rushed to finish off our food and quickly left the pier. Nobody was around basically except for the people who had lived near the pier their entire lives. Ian pulled up beside one who was grabbing their newspaper, but he didn't want to speak to us. We drove off then to find out what was happening in Whitehall.

"If your mom called at 9:30 and it's about ten now it's been about twelve hours since she left that message." Drew stated looking over at Renee, "Something must have happened after we left Ian's then or already was and we avoided it barely."

Sammi frowned and stared out of the window, "How quick does an infection spread?"

Drew shrugged and lowered his head, "I don't know to be honest Sammi, but if I'm right it all depends on what it is and how it is spread."

"What do you think that man had?" I asked spinning around.

Renee was quick to reply, "I don't know. At the Tech center we never learned about something like this. I don't even know if they've ever saw something like what we saw yesterday before."

"We can all agree that the man we saw was a scientist of some sorts because of the outfit he wore yesterday; correct?" Ian asked as he turned onto a main road.

Everybody nodded their heads in agreement, but I was curious. "Why is a scientist in the middle of the woods infected with a disease we've never seen before? Wouldn't someone inform us if they were going to have a lab set up in town and about what they were experimenting on?"

Drew shook his head in response, "The government loves to keep things secret from the public."

"This can't be from the government though," Sammi argued, "the government isn't smart enough to keep everything under wraps."

Drew looked over at her then and frowned, "This may be a company working for the government then. There are facilities that do that kind of stuff you know. How do you think we stay ahead of the game when it comes to things like vaccines and weapons?"

"Don't you think that this whole thing is just a little too crazy to think of?" Ian asked. Him slamming onto the breaks suddenly made all of us then leap out of our seats. I was about ready to yell at him when the sight in front of us caught my attention. All over the road were abandoned vehicles.

I quickly made a choice then and said it. "Take the highway; now."

Ian shook his head and slammed onto the accelerator as he guided the Blazer through the traffic.

"What the hell is going on?" Sammi squeaked as her eyes stayed glued to the scenery outside,

When we reached the highway we faced the same exact issue. It was a terrifying scene to see as Ian kept the Blazer moving at a steady 90mph. It looked as if human existence had been erased and all that was left was the technology we had developed over the past couple hundred years. There was so much going on in our heads that at one point I could hear Sammi crying from the back seat. My left hand slowly moved over to Ian's and he didn't hesitate to grab it.

I could feel how tense he was just by how hard he was squeezing my hand, which was almost painful. I would every once in a while look over at him to see if was okay to see the same look of fear upon his face.

The closer to the exit we got the more vehicles were in the way. There were so many at one point that Ian had to slow the SUV down to 30mph. The sight was all the same though as we neared the exit. I slowly leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder as he took the exit; maneuvering the Blazer where it needed to go.

Nobody knew of the nightmare that was lying ahead of us though. It would become a living hell for all of us and would forever set the future in stone for some of us.

R.E 9


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter _Four: _Hurricane**

When the Blazer got off of the exit we ran into the same issue with the abandoned vehicles. Not one of them had their lights on or their blinkers which looked somewhat odd. It was very puzzling and confusing.

"What was taking place at the high school last night?" Ian asked navigating the Blazer.

Renee shrugged her shoulders and looked outside at the 'scenery', "There was a NHS meeting last night. I think there was a game as well, but I don't remember for what. Kaitlyn is in NHS though."

"Hopefully there wasn't an incident at the high school." Drew said looking outside as well.

Ian had to slow the car to a staggering 15mph as the road became tougher to drive through. Near some of the vehicles was what appeared to be blood, which worried all of us to some degree. It took Ian about 20 minutes to drive through the mass before we reached the high school. On the way through we could see the gas station which was overcrowded with abandoned vehicles of all sorts. It was almost ten in the morning.

"Is there anything we brought with us or that was already in the SUV that can be used a weapon?" I asked.

Ian softly squeezed my hand before replying, "I think my dad has a bat in here from the batting cages a couple of days ago and we also have that metal rod that we used for the fire, why?"

"We're going to need protection just in case." I said.

Sammi grabbed both before sitting back down, "Who gets what?"

The Blazer went silent as Ian pulled into the student parking lot. Most of the vehicles that were parked were parked very neatly, but a couple of them were parked rather sloppily. It made all of us wonder what was in store for us. The SUV was parked very close to the entrance and everybody hopped out. Ian snatched the bat and Drew took the rod without any arguments. As we slowly made our way to the doors Renee pushed past, wanting to be the first inside. She got to the glass doors and looked inside, only to freeze in place from horror and she screamed. Drew made a mad dash over to see what the problem was as we followed close behind him.

"Baby, why are you screaming?" He asked, trying to soothe away some of her fright.

Renee's shaken body slowly regained some of its control before she pointed inside croaking, "We're too late the school it's overflowing with monsters. Take a look."

Drew walked up to the door and peeked inside only to freeze in horror himself. At that point a rather chilly breeze blew in and I shivered from the wind's surprising temperature. Ian quickly walked over and took a peek for himself and signaled for me to come over.

"He's right, Jaz. Look at all of those damn things inside. One was enough of a problem; there's more than fifty in there for sure. No body is alive in there." Ian said as I looked inside.

He was right, but I was stubborn. "We gotta at least try; Kaitlyn might still be alive in there and is waiting for us to rescue her. I'm going in."

As I walked up to the door to push it Ian grabbed my arm and pulled me into him, "It's too dangerous for us to go inside. Remember yesterday's incident?"

"Of course I do, but Renee's mum is counting on us." I replied.

Drew walked up to me then and nodded in agreement, "She's right; Kaitlyn isn't dumb enough to be eaten alive by those monsters. We need to go in there and go save her. "

Renee walked over and hugged Drew then as Sammi walked up and leaned on my shoulder, "So, what's our plan then? We can't just rush in there and think we're superheroes."

I smiled and began to open the door, "Let Ian go first, then me, and then Drew. That way since you two are defenseless you don't have to get hurt in any way."

I looked over and saw Ian grow pale, "Why do I have to go first?"

"I trust you a lot; that's why." I replied as he rushed in. I followed suit as we entered what was once the high school. Inside the walls were at some areas covered in crimson from the blood of a victim or monster. As we ran down the art hall we encountered the undead head on.

"Go for their heads!" I cried out as Ian swung the bat in desperation.

As he swung I used my martial art skills and threw many of our foes down while Drew bashed in as many skulls as he could. There were about seventy in the Viking Center/ lunchroom. As we got closer to the middle of the room, my eyes focused on the office, which door was slightly ajar. A small blood trail also led to that door.

"Over there, the office door is open!" I shouted as the crew followed closely behind. My black canvas high tops were covered in blood and brain matter already. Every once in a while either Ian or Drew would hit someone good enough; to the degree that a cracking noise would be produced by the monster's head smashing open. We made great progress to the door and quickly ran inside into the office, where the door was quickly slammed closed.

My eyes were only able to get a quick glance around before a hidden 'friend' popped out from around the corner and attempted to tear my throat out. Ian was able to respond quickly enough and the butt end of a bat to the skull was the zombie's 'gift' back. My eyes once the danger was put down quickly saw what appeared to be a scene of some sort of struggle. Papers were flung all over the place and the big picture window that was between the office and Viking Center was covered in blood.

"The blood on the window looks pretty fresh. Let's follow the blood trail and see where it takes us." Drew said running down the office's small, narrow hallway. Everybody tagged close behind as the trail led out of the office into the freshman hallway and locker area. My limbs were a little sore from fighting so many monsters. I was wishing that I had worked out a little more. My heart skipped a beat from fear because there was nothing other than the blood trail to be seen.

"Where could she be at?" Renee asked looking around.

Drew walked over and kissed her softly, "She's alive, sweetie. We just have to track her down; that's all."

"Someone who's lost this much blood wouldn't have made it too much farther." I said beginning to follow the trail.

Everybody kept close as we made our way to the sophomore hallway. It was so eerie and calm compared to what it was in the Viking Center. For a second I thought this was all a part of my imagination and I was going to wake up at the beach next to Ian. When I looked down and saw the blood trail though I knew there was no way none of us could be dreaming. We were led upstairs to the junior hallway where the amount of blood increased. It increased to the point that pools of blood were on each side of the trail. There were curdles of food in the puddles; indicating someone vomited the blood up.

"What illness would cause someone to vomit up this much blood?" Sammi gasped as we continued forward. It was hard to imagine the possibilities. Right around the corner of the hallway we found the source of the blood trail and puddles. Lying in a big pool of blood was no one other than Renee's sister. Renee's heart was crushed at the sight of her sister's corpse, but she didn't want to leave.

"She didn't make it after all." She whispered bending down to rub her sister's back. An animalistic noise came from Kaitlyn then. Renee's eyes lit up with joy as she stood up and waited for Kaitlyn to get up.

Ian looked over at Renee and frowned, "Renee, she needs to be put down before she hurts any of us."

Renee was quick to fire back a response as Kaitlyn slowly got up, "Look guys, she's not like the others, see? She can get up and even recognizes who I am!" Kaitlyn began to shamble over to Renee then, but we all could see she was not human any more. Her whole right cheek was missing; exposing the inside of her mouth that was all bloody. One of her teeth on that side of her face was also missing.

Ian went to ready the bat and Renee snatched it away from him as everybody stepped back from Kaitlyn. Renee was not happy in the least bit, "She's not like them guys, why won't you listen to me?"

I slowly stepped up to her and took the bat from her hands and gave it back to Ian, "She was a human once, but now look at her, Renee. She is a soulless monster that wants to feed on you as if you were a cookie. Drew and Sammi; get her out of here because it's going to get bloody in here very soon."

Renee ran over to tackle me, but Drew had a good grip on her as Sammi and he took her down the hallway and around the corner so she didn't have to witness Ian bashing her sister's skull in. The second they left Ian and I turned our attention to what was once Kaitlyn and prepared for the worse. She staggered over to Ian and in a surprising move darted over to him; her mouth was wide open ready to bite. Ian's reflexes were way quicker though and in one swing what was once Kaitlyn's body was now a headless heap of flesh and bone.

It was almost too unbearable for us as I fell onto my knees and began to weep. Ian couldn't handle it either and ran to a near by garbage can where he vomited. I got up a second later to escape the nightmare and walked down the same hallway the others did. As I passed by the teacher's prep room something quickly grabbed my attention. In the one corner of the room appeared to be a shoe that was attached to a foot.

My curiosity took over then as I ran up to the room's door and opened it. The second I entered the room a person leapt out of the corner and tired to hit me with a wooden board. I grabbed the board and threw it across the room to see no one other than my friend Tristan standing in front of me with a look of relief on his face.

"Tristan?" I asked walking up to him.

His smile faded away as he croaked my name back. Something was wrong with him and Ian ran into the room ready to kill. Tristan fell over though and it took both of us to help him up. Sammi ran in then with a shocked look on her face as she grabbed the wooden board.

"What's Tristan doing here?" She asked confused.

I shrugged as we left the room, "I don't know, but he's hurt really badly. We need to get out of here and fast or he might not make it."

Sammi ran over and took my place as we ran down the hallway and met up with the others. Drew and Renee both looked in shock as Sammi and Ian helped Tristan along. Sammi was quick to hand the board over as we planned our next strategy then.

"Where did you find him at?" Drew asked.

I frowned as Ian handed the bat over to me, "He was in the teacher's prep room; hiding from whatever and whomever that attacked him and Kaitlyn."

Tristan lifted his head and shook his head, "She tried to attack me."

Renee looked puzzled then, "What happened last night, Tristan?"

His eyes were full of fear and horror as he retold his version of events,

"I was at the game and your sister was at the NHS meeting. Someone walked in during the game and didn't look so healthy. He was with his wife. About ten minute later he began to shake uncontrollably and then without any warning he fell over onto his wife's lap and died. People were so shocked nobody did anything until the man attacked and ripped his wife's throat out. There was so much chaos and panic as everyone rushed to the doors a couple of people got ran over. People started to die left and right then there was so much fucking blood. I ran out through the locker room entrance and I ran into the auditorium to warn the others. Nobody believed me until one of those things came in and ripped out Mrs. Hartman's throat. By the time we ran out of there and back into the Viking Center we couldn't escape because some of those things were blocking the door and feasting on people. A small group of us made it to the office, but there was one hiding and one by one we were attacked. Kaitlyn did her best to comfort the dying, but when her best friend died she lost it. We stayed over the night thinking it would pass, but it didn't and Kaitlyn's friend bit her. We ran out of the office and well…she passed out in the hallway and then tried to eat me, so I hit her with the board and knocked her out."

Tristan was shaking by the time he finished the story and we didn't know what to do. Renee ran ahead and looked through the double paneled frosted windows that overlooked the Viking Center and ran back with an idea.

"We can use the stairwell here and go through the doors and then run around the corner. We'll be in the art hallway where we started." She said walking over to me.

I nodded and raised the bat slowly; testing its leverage to see how much of a swing I had to put into it, "Sounds like a plan to me. Can you guys keep up with Renee, Drew, and me?"

"I think we got this pretty good, Jaz." Ian chuckled.

I smiled and gave the command out then, "Let's not waste anymore time then. Move out."

I ran ahead and jumped down the stairwell to the doorway. My eyes took a peek through one of the door's windows to see the current situation. Our arrival made a lot of noise and had attracted a lot of the undead into the Viking Center; most of them were over by the office trying to break in. When Renee had caught up to me I slammed the door open; throwing two zombies across the room.

"Come on guys, move it!" I barked swinging away with the bat. It felt good to see and hear the undead being smashed apart.

Renee took out four with one good swing as I moved forward and round housed kicked a couple of more to the ground. Ian and Sammi were right behind Drew as he used the metal rod the best way he could. As we neared the exit everybody felt a gleam of hope as the doors became an arm reach away. I decided to show off a little and slide the last ten feet on my butt while using the bat to trip the last couple of undead. I remember looking back at Tristan to see how much paler he looked since we found him. It startled me a little, but I didn't want my fear to show through. We made it outside and rushed to the Blazer; making sure none of the monsters inside were following us. Drew hopped in the back where the gear was so Tristan could sit.

"I feel faint." Tristan croaked.

Renee helped to buckle him in as Ian started the SUV up, "Tristan we're going to a park not too far away from here. I need you to stay awake for me, okay?"

Tristan faintly nodded and everybody buckled in and we drove away from a nightmare come true.

"What would be the closest park from here?" Ian asked.

Drew was quick to respond, "The Woodland Park is a mile away. Go and turn left on Durham Road. It should be up on the right."

Ian did his best to drive through the ruins while Renee cared for Tristan. Fifteen gruesome minutes ticked by before we arrived at our destination. The Blazer turned and Ian found a good parking spot that was right next to a picnic table. The second he parked the car Drew, Renee, and Sammi jumped out; carrying Tristan to the table. He was gently put down as I jumped out of the Blazer and rushed over.

"What is causing you pain?" Renee asked.

Tristan was hesitant to answer.

"You need to tell her, or she can't help you." I said as Ian ran over.

He started to shake then as the words fumbled out of his lips, "Look underneath my shirt."

Renee looked puzzled until she lifted his shirt and discovered the unimaginable. "When did you get this bite mark, Tristan?" She looked somewhat panicked.

"Your sister bit me in the hallway this morning before I was able to hit her." Tristan replied.

"The bite isn't that bad though." Sammi pointed out.

"Whatever destroyed our town must cause someone to become a-"

"Zombie." Renee croaked finishing Drew's statement.

That's when everything went to hell. Tristan suddenly clutched his stomach and began to violently convulse. Ian and Drew tried to pin Tristan down, but Tristan quickly broke free.

"My stomach, oh god my stomach is being ripped apart!" Tristan cried out as he rolled off of the table then. He vomited blood then as the transformation took place in front of our very front eyes.

"Stop moving so we can help you!" Drew panicked running over to his dying friend.

I walked over and stopped him then, "Get away from him; we can't do anything now."

Drew's face grew pale from shock then as Tristan got up on his knees and vomited once again. There was more blood this time. Ian looked away in shock while the rest of us watched in horror. Tristan vomited three more times before he wailed out one last time. After that he fell onto the ground dead.

"What the hell is happening to our world?" Sammi screamed as she fell to the ground in shock. She started to sob in horror.

"This is the survival of the fittest." Drew gasped. I walked over to him then and took the metal rod in exchange for the bat. A couple of seconds went by before the corpse of what was once Tristan began to move again.

"I suggest that if you have a weak stomach to now turn away because this is going to be messy." I said readying the rod. At that second I assumed my role as group leader and took the responsibility of being the strongest one.

"I can kill him, Jaz." Ian said walking up to me. By then Tristan was already standing up and was shambling over to Drew. I nodded and motioned him to do so. Ian took the rod and stepped up to Tristan; fearless. I watched as Ian smashed Tristan's brains out while everyone else turned away in horror. When he finished the job he walked over to the Blazer and opened the back up.

"I suggest that we eat now instead of later. We can head back to my house afterwards." Ian said.

It was shocking to think that only twelve hours ago we were all enjoying the good life. It was time to fight though and survive this living nightmare.

R.E 5


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter _Five: _Give Em' Hell Kid**

I walked up to Ian and shook my head, "We need to get supplies. Let's go to the police station and grab some weapons and then head to Pamida afterwards and get some necessities."

Ian quickly shook his head in disagreement, "We are not properly equipped to go into town with the undead running amok. Let's head back to my house and wait it out a couple of days."

"What if they're at your house as well? We need more food anyways; we only have enough for a couple of days and we don't even know how much longer the power is going to be on." I whispered.

He lost it completely then. In a split second Ian tossed his weapon to the ground and pinned me up against the Blazer. I was taken aback at his actions, but didn't fight back. I looked into his eyes and saw they were full of fear.

"Why are you so afraid to fight back?" I asked.

He frowned and lowered his head, "I'm not going to lose you like we did with Kaitlyn and Tristan."

I leaned in and kissed his forehead, "This is for the team as a whole; not just for my own selfish reasons. If I had a choice I would want to go straight to your house and wait this out too, but we might not get the chance to make it back, don't you understand?"

Ian pulled me in then and held me tightly; trying to calm down. One of his hands began to stroke my hair as he whispered softly in my ear, "Please don't do this to me; I just got you back."

I pushed him away then and barked in his face, "Does everything have to revolve around you? Dammit, Ian, we're in the middle of a fucking zombie apocalypse and the first thing that comes to your mind is how sucky your life has become. Maybe everyone was right; I should have never wanted to date you in the first place back in my freshman year. I should have never dated you at the end of my junior year either; you were just a dog anyways." I stomped over to Tristan's body and pointed at it with pure anger, "What would have happened to Tristan last night if he thought everything was about him? Kaitlyn and the others at that NHS meeting would have never had the chance to survive. We're a team now and if you think you're better than the rest of us then you can leave and barricade yourself in your home and ride this out or you can get a grip on the situation right now and be a part of this group, understand?"

Everyone else stared in awe as I glared into Ian's eyes. My fists were clenching together so tightly that I didn't realize I was bleeding until I looked down and saw the blood dripping down from them. When I looked back up at Ian his eyes were full of tears. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I'm not thinking just about myself in this situation. That's where you're wrong. My house is much safer than Whitehall is." He said as a tear fell down his face, "I'm not leaving you; no matter what you think about my actions. I'm stubborn and I'm going to stay that way; no matter what you want me to be. I was a dog in the past because that's what I thought would protect me from getting my heart hurt again."

Renee ran over and put in her input then, "Jaz is right, if we want to even have a chance of surviving this we need to get supplies and plan a strategy of getting out. I bet the military has US-131 blocked off already and won't let anyone through; no matter how desperate we are."

Ian spun around and then sighed while walking back over to the back of the Blazer. By then I had become so angry and disgusted I threw off Ian's hoodie onto the Blazer's roof and ran over to a near-by swing. I wanted to punch him in the face so badly. As I sat in the swing and took my time to relax another breeze came through and snapped my focus onto more important things. The city hall, which was also the police station, had to be flooded with people who were both dead and alive. My feet kicked a couple of rocks around as the others slowly made their way over to Ian and grabbed their lunch. It would be selfish of me to not grab food now and wait until later I decided. My body shivered a little from the cold as I got up and walked over to the Blazer. My hands were still bleeding a good amount still.

"We got plenty of meat to chow down on." Drew informed me as he took a big bite out of his sandwich.

I gave him a little smile as my reply before Renee rushed over and tended my wounds. I made two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches after she had finished and I made sure to put in extra filling so I would stay full longer. With every bite a big gush of jelly would come out and the perfect lesser amount of peanut butter would come out and mix with it. When both sandwiches were finished I fetched the hoodie and put it back on. It was hard to not look over at Ian the whole time and when I finally did he was also looking at me with a remorseful expression. After the whole group had finished it was time to set up a plan that everyone could agree upon.

"Here's the plan." I said sitting on the back of the Blazer, "We'll go to the city hall and gather supplies. If nothing goes wrong there we'll go to Pamida then and get more supplies. If either one fails we will go to Ian's house immediately. Is that okay with everyone?"

"Why can't we just go to my house?" Sammi asked.

I replied as honestly as I could, "Your house is very far away from here, but if the chance does come and rescue arrives we can be located much easier. White Lake is also very close and if we can find a boat or something similar to it we can use it to escape."

Sammi rolled her eyes in disgust and I knew what she was exactly thinking in her head. Most likely she thought the only reason we were going back to Ian's house was because I liked him. She didn't want to be the fifth wheel of the group, but with how she was acting the whole time the fifth wheel treatment was all she was going to get until she treated everyone in the group with respect.

"This isn't about you, Sammi, either. This is the best way we can survive this." Drew barked.

"Fuck it." I hissed standing up, "I'll go you guys can just go wherever the hell you want to."

"I'm staying with you." Renee announced, "I think you're the only one right that is thinking for the group as a whole and I think that a very noble thing."

"I'm coming with you too." Drew barked standing up from his spot.

Ian got up and brushed his self off, "I'm not leaving you; no matter what happens."

Sammi looked very pissed as she stood up and stomped over to me, "Fine, I'll go with you. I'm doing this though just because you have more people in your group."

"Thank you, Sammi." I sighed walking away from her. I quickly asked Renee then, "Do you know what the weather is going to be like for the next couple of days?"

She smiled and pulled out her phone, "The temp is going to drop to around 75 with thunderstorms later tonight. It'll be in the mid seventies for the rest of the week."

"Cool." I said yawning. I was a little bit tired from all the running we were doing.

"I suggest you all to conserve your cell phone batteries just in case we don't reach Ian's house." Drew said.

Everyone nodded in agreement as Renee, Sammi, and Ian shut their phones off. It was about 12:30 in the afternoon at that point. We all began to load the Blazer up then; leaving some unneeded things behind.

"Jaz," Ian whispered pulling me aside for a second, "I'm sorry for what happened. I'm really not trying to think for myself; I just feel so shitty about this whole thing and you're the group's ray of sunshine."

I kissed him then as the crew got into the SUV, "I forgive you, just don't your head, alright?"

He smiled and quickly hugged me before hopping into the SUV himself. I got into the passenger seat and buckled myself in; knowing what we were about to see was nothing normal. As he pulled away from the park my mind jumped to different memories I had of the past couple of years and how now all those memories were basically useless.

"We need some good driving music." Ian said flicking the radio onto the alternative channel. One of my favorite songs was playing. It helped to melt away some of the tension I had gained throughout the day.

When we had arrived in town the scene was quite ghastly. A dog was being chased down the street by the undead; another one was being ripped apart like a piece of candy would amongst a group of kids. I had to close my eyes and ignore it; even though I knew it wouldn't be the last time I would see something horrific like that. The amount of empty cars, trucks, vans, SUVs was another horrific sight to see. Some of them were on fire and a couple even had half bodies dangling out from the windows. I could smell a little bit of decay from them.

"The rain should clean up the decay smell a little." Drew noted looking at the sight through his window.

Sammi looked as pale as a brand new sheet, "Why would this happen to a town like ours?"

"I don't want to find out why; I just want to get out of here." Renee blurted out.

Ian pulled the Blazer onto a less crowded side street because there was no where else to go. The destruction showed even on a couple of houses which had been boarded up and in one case; lit on fire. The undead didn't really take notice of us unless we were fifteen feet or closer to them. They would try to swipe at the SUV once or twice, but other than that just looked and stared.

"Do you think they even had time to set up a refugee point considering the destruction that we've seen so far?" I asked rolling down a window to get a better view.

Ian frowned and turned the music off as he took notice of the scene, "I don't think anyone in town knew what hit them until it was on top of them. The police at the most would have locked themselves and a couple of others inside the station, but I doubt it."

I rolled the window up and closed my eyes; imagining the horrific scene that had played last night in my little hometown. My eyes were witness to hundreds of screaming people being eaten and beaten alive as the chaos grew. Loved ones stayed behind wanting to be devoured by the ones they cared for. The police became useless as the mob became increasingly unstable. Their bullets were useless against the undead because of poor judgment and aiming. One by one the cops were shoved to the ground and ripped apart by the hungry and restless monsters that had taken the city alive. A few of them had managed to slip into the police station and city hall, but barely. A couple of them were bitten during the escape and none of them knew that the infection was spread form such a thing. Downtown Whitehall had fallen apart within minutes and what was left of it was a grave reminder to those who had seen the Raccoon City incident on TV back in 1998. My eyes snapped back open when the Blazer began to slow down.

"We're here." Ian announced.

Everyone peered out to see a horrific sight that would have been movie perfect if it wasn't happening in real life. All around us were the undead; some were shambling about while others were lying on the ground in perfect silence. The closer we got to the station's parking lot the more we could see of what had happened last night. There was a large rotting pile of bodies that was being fed upon over by the paramedic's station and the number of undead was a staggering amount. My eyes could see that there were barricades and fenced in areas everywhere, but the only one that wasn't destroyed was the last one that surrounded the police department and city hall's shared entrance.

"There has to be at least one survivor inside!" Sammi squeaked. Her hope was higher than the rest of ours.

I peered around the area for another second before Ian parked the Blazer and we got out. My heart began to thump from the thrill and terror of our situation. My mind was focused though and the command was boldly given out.

"Look around the perimeter to see if we can get in. If you can't then make one and fast because every second we waste here is another one we waste with those things walking around."

"Who's going with whom?" Renee asked.

I smiled a little as we all jumped out. It took me less than a second to look around once more before giving her my verdict, "You, Drew, and Sammi are going in one group while Ian and I are in the other."

Sammi glared at me, but ran off with the others as Ian and I took off in the opposite direction. As we made it halfway around both of us stopped to look around.

"Why did you want just me in your group?" Ian asked.

I chuckled a little from his question as I took a sturdy tree branch from the ground and snapped in into a good long rod, "You're the most social of the group if you didn't know."

He looked over at me and smiled, "How much do you think Sammi hates me right now?"

I swung the new weapon around a couple of times before replying, "She hates you with a burning passion I think."

Ian winked at me agreeing as we took off once more. It was odd for both of us to be able to joke around in the middle of such a dire situation, but at the same time it was blessing because it helped us to keep going when it got tough. When we had circled around out portion of the building, but did not see the others we became slightly worried.

"Call them." I said as Ian pulled out his phone and dialed Renee's number. Nobody answered.

"Shit." I barked in fear as we picked up our pace.

We had almost made it halfway around when we found the others. All three of them were digging furiously underneath a fenced in barrier that had been overlooked when I looked around earlier. Both of us sprinted over and began to dig as well. Yet we had almost forgotten what we were digging away from until Drew took notice of the undead.

"Quick we need to distract them or we're going to become their next meal!"

Ian got up and looked around frantically as the distance grew smaller and smaller. I began to get up when he got the idea.

"Got it." He announced picking up a larger stone and tossing it. None of knew what he was up to exactly until the stone hit a metal barricade twenty feet away. The noise it produced was loud and echoed at an alarming rate. The monsters took quick notice though and began to walk towards to noise. Ian quickly picked up another stone and hit the barricade again and again; each time it bought us more time to dig. A couple of seconds went by before he threw the stones at a barricade another fifteen feet away, which helped to carry the undead away even more so.

"Nice job; keep it up!" Drew said as Renee pulled herself under and made it to the other side. We kept digging as Sammi slipped herself through. She got stuck though and began to scream a little. That made a couple of the near by zombies interested and they began to shamble over to us.

"Sammi; shut up!" I hissed as we got her unstuck. She crawled through and we kept digging. A couple of seconds went by before it was my turn.

"Drew go ahead and go though." I said digging.

"Ladies first." He whispered.

I frowned and quickly crawled through. In the back of my mind I was worried that neither of the boys was going to make it. Ian quickly ran over and helped to dig even more as Drew made it through. Nobody saw the zombie that had walked out from around the corner as Ian started to crawl through. It had snuck up and grabbed Ian's left ankle and started to tug away. None of knew what was happening until Ian began to shout for help.

"Jaz!"

I sprinted over and helped to grab Ian's arms and pull him away. We played a mini game of tug-o-war until the monster finally gave way and let us go.

Bury the hole back up; now!" I barked as everyone pitched in. The monster was able to got in most of the way though and Sammi beat it down with the bat. She was breathing very hard by the time she had beaten the monster's head to a pulp. Hopefully that would stop her from being in such a grouchy mood. I brushed the dirt off of my knees and hands before giving out any directions. The rest of the group was catching their breath as well.

"We should head inside now; before those things catch up and tear the barricade down." I muttered.

Sammi stepped ahead and led us inside without saying a word, but her eyes as she passed by were full of anger. As each of us entered; a thousand different smells rushed into our noses. Most of them were rather unpleasant like gunpowder and also decay. A light scent of fruit also filled the air though and it didn't make any sense until Renee had spotted an air freshener not too far away. The sight of that air freshener only made me think more about what had transpired here the night before as one of my feet crunched down on an empty gun casing. Its din made me jump a little, but I quickly remembered I was with friends.

"Want me to turn on the light?" Sammi asked pointing at the light switch.

I nodded 'yes' and she flicked over the switch quickly. The hallway lit up and our eyes laid witness to the dozens of gun casings that littered that hall. Also what was most shocking was the blood trail that went down the hallway following the casings. Drew quickly asked the question then while we pondered to ourselves.

"What would cause a trail of blood and also involve the involvement of dozens of bullets?"

Ian quickly barked back in response, "We better not run into whatever did this or we're going to be screwed."

Boldly I walked ahead and followed the trail down the hall. It seemed to go on forever until the hall spilt into two. The left hall had the blood trail while the other one had the gun casings. It puzzled all of us greatly as we stood there contemplating on what to do next.

"Which way do we want to take?" I asked looking around.

Renee carefully bent down and examined the blood. She quickly made her observations and let us know what she had seen, "This blood trail is from the previous night. Whatever had made this can't be too much away because of the excessive amount of blood present. There are so many gun casings though. Whoever fired these must have been shoot at something that was very intelligent and fast, or we would have seen it on the ground dead already. We might want to split the groups, but if that thing is still here you might not want to risk losing anyone or putting them in danger."

Sammi disagreed with Renee though, "I don't think we should go any farther. We don't need to die from some monster that we are not even equipped to fight if the situation was to take to place."

Both of them had made good valid points, but there was a reason why we came here. I wasn't going to back down and run away now. Before I could say anything though Ian spoke and planned out what we were going to do next.

"You three can follow the blood trail while Jaz and I investigate the gun casing's path."

"Good idea, should we meet back here in ten minutes or so?" Drew asked.

"Turn your cells on and put them on vibrate so we can text each other incase someone finds something." I chirped. No one argued and we went our separate ways. A couple of seconds had passed by before I spun my head over at Ian and asked him curiously.

"Why do we always pair up with each other again?"

Ian looked over and smirked, "I didn't want to tell you this earlier, but I find you very attractive and I like how you hold that stick in your hands so well."

Another small chuckle escaped through my lips as I fumbled my hands around. They found the light switch and I flicked it on without any hesitation. The hall lit up and we walked a little further until we turned the corner. Our eyes lay upon a horrific sight. Right around the corner slumped over was a dead police officer with his pistol still in his hand. We had discovered the cause of the gun casing trail.

"Christ." I gasped rushing over to examine the body.

Ian darted over as well. When he went to grab the gun the body we discovered was actually cut in half and the one half sickly slid off. My stomach churned at the sight, but I picked up a piece of paper and read it to Ian.

"Dear Suzanne," I began, "I know you will most likely not receive this, but I just wanted to let you know that I very so much love you and I hope you were able to leave before the Army came and blocked everything off. The station isn't safe anymore as those monsters take claim of my friends and fellow officers. This sickness is just like the one that had happened in Tall Oaks not too long ago and I wonder if it has any connection at all. I must go now. I love you."

"Tall Oaks?" Ian asked looking at me with a puzzled look on his face.

I frowned and placed the paper next to the corpse as Ian took all the gun bullets he could find on the body, "You didn't hear about that? A virus took out a town of 70,000 within a couple of days. It didn't happen too long ago."

"You know how I am with catching up on the news." Ian sighed while loading the gun.

I nodded and kissed his cheek, "Of course I do."

"I put five bullets into the clip and there are another eight more in my pocket; just incase we run into any trouble." He explained letting me hold the gun. It was heavier than I had expected it to be. I handed it back over to him and we continued our search. Not too much farther down the hall we found the operator's room.

"Who wants to go in first?" I asked.

Ian stepped in without saying anything and began to search for the room's light switch. We were faced with a gruesome sight. From what we could see papers had been thrown around along with anything else that was light enough to be. I stepped on an empty water bottle and the next step was on a broken coffee mug. Both when stepped on made me jump from shock.

"What the hell could have done this?" Ian gasped taking in the sight.

I shook my head in frustration as I stepped forward to take a closer look of the room, "I don't want to know."

He grabbed my left hand and pulled me over to him and gently kissed my lips, "Let me go ahead of you; I got the gun you know."

"We'll be okay; besides," I replied walking over to puddle of blood, "this looks old." I slowly bent down to take a closer look when I discovered what used to be the body of one of the paramedics we had seen the night before. Their corpse was mangled even worse than the officer's body we had found not too long ago.

"His complete torso is missing and seems to be spread out all over the ground, but neither this body nor the officer's has become undead yet." I explained pointing out the pieces of torso that were all over the carpet.

Ian during this time period had found the room's light switch and had flicked it on. The sight was like a nightmare right out of a horror film. On every square inch of wall it seemed there was blood. Even the windows appeared as if they too were drenched in a heavy coating of crimson. That's when the heavy sickening smell of iron from all the blood hit my nose.

"Christ." I gagged almost throwing up on the spot. My eyes also could clearly see the clear look of panic on the dead paramedic's face, or at this point what was left of it. I clutched my stomach as I held my food down.

Ian rushed over to help me up, but froze while making his way over.

"What is it?" I croaked out.

His pale white face only made my stomach lurch more as he responded, "There's more of them than just the paramedic."

I sprang up as if I was on trampoline and laid my eyes upon the wreckage. Three more bodies had magically appeared and they looked even worse than the first one we found. One of them was torn up to the point that we couldn't tell if it was a female or a male. They were all detectives that were also at the crime scene the day before. It made my body shudder in fear as Ian looked around the room. I got up and also helped out. In the remains I was able to find two more fully loaded gun clips, but there wasn't another gun in sight. There were deep claw marks in the bodies and when Ian touched one blood oozed out.

"Here, I found it on the body over by the window." Ian whispered handing over a handgun. It was another Beretta, but mine had a laser scope attached to it. As he handed it over he gave me a couple of pointers, "Remember to aim at the nose when shooting. With the scope attachment that shouldn't be too bad to do. These guns might be small, but they do pack a punch so be aware of the coil you might get from shooting."

"Where did you learn to shoot at?" I asked while inspecting the gun.

He grinned while inspecting his, "My step dad and Boy Scouts are the two to blame. I can pull off a really nice shot now because of them."

"Boy Scouts teach you how to shoot?" I asked, surprised.

"It's a badge if you do a decent enough of a job. The same goes for bows and knives."

"Jeesh." I sighed loading the gun and practice aiming at a coffee mug not too far away.

Ian smiled as he walked past inspecting the room one last time. There was nothing else to be seen and we left the room in a hurry. The next room we encountered was the records room, which had been torn to shreds. Papers and records were just shreds of confetti now and we knew not to even bother search the room. The next room was a janitor's closet, but the only significant thing inside of it was another mangled corpse of a paramedic. The ventilation cover in that room had been blown of its hinges. As we left it a glittering set of building keys caught my eye and they were swiped off from the ring they dangled down from.

"Bingo." I squeaked putting them into the pocket.

Ian took notice and smiled over at me as we walked out. The next area we went to was the holding room where the jail cells were at. It was a minor shock to us as we entered the room to see a horde of the undead trapped inside the cells trying to claw their way out. They were all infected, but some had been affected while in the cell. This was apparent by their appearance; limbs were missing and large parts of their faces were gone too. The sight was grisly at first, but we were able to ignore it enough to walk back out. Ian noticed one of them was different though.

"Look at the one near the back; his skin is red!"

I took a quick glance, but didn't say anything about it as we left.

"Do you think the others found anything?" Ian asked.

My reddish brown eyes looked up at him and smiled, "I hope they found something good."

It didn't take long before Sammi came running up to us with an excited look on her face. Her eyes lit up as she tole us the news, "We found guns, bullets, and the Chief!"

The news made us just as excited as we raced back to where Drew and Renee were at. When we had reached them the celebration was cut short because of the discovery that the Chief was dead and had been dead for some time. It wasn't too shocking though until I realized the stockpile of weapons that surrounded his torn corpse.

"What a greedy bastard." Ian hissed.

My eyes quickly spotted the shotgun near the Chief's left arm and snatched it up. It only took me a second to scan it over before I found the large dent in the barrel; making the gun useless. I was a little disappointed of the discovery.

"Damn," I barked tossing the gun aside, "the barrel is dinged up too much."

Ian's eyes had spotted the M4 and quickly laid claim to it. I found some clips for him and he pocketed them as if they were gold. He gave the handgun along with its clips to Renee before carefully examining the body up close.

"Whatever killed Chief killed everyone else we found." Ian noted.

I nodded as he lifted one of the Chief's arms. A couple of drops of blood dripped down from the arm and landed onto the ground. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end.

Ian slowly got up and shook his head, "Whatever got him is still around here somewhere. Poor guy never got a chance to fire even a single bullet."

"It's a pretty gun you have there Ian. Last I knew M4's are illegal." Drew said.

"They are very illegal." Ian agreed, "In this situation though a M4 is a good gun to have on hand."

I looked over at Ian and frowned, "I hope we find some more guns soon. If that thing is still around here we need all the gun power we have."

"Let's try to find the Sheriff now. Maybe he's still alive and can help us out." Sammi said.

"Good idea." I replied walking away. Everybody followed close behind as we looked around and found the Sheriff's office. The window to the office on the front side had a huge blood smear on it and it made me wonder what was going to be inside. The door was locked until I found the proper key and unlocked it. Ian rushed in and I followed as we stormed into the office. To our surprise the Sheriff was sitting at his desk with a modified Beretta in hand with an empty look on his old weathered face. A big gash appeared on his face, but had been recently stitched up, but there still a good amount of dry blood that had not been cleaned up on his face. His expression changed to a hopeful one as we ran over to him.

"Sheriff?"

He looked up and frowned, "You're alive after all."

"What happened here?" Drew asked.

The Sheriff slowly got up out of his chair and walked over to the small cabinet behind him.

"Last night", the Sheriff stated, "was a living nightmare from hell."

I walked up to him worried and asked, "How so?"

He pulled out a shotgun with a full box of shells and handed them over to me as he did the best to retell his version of what had happened,

"After we collected all the data we needed at the crime scene we headed back here to analyze it. The doctor that was here took a bit of the blood we got from the scene and took a look at it. What he found baffled us all. He said there was a virus in the blood; a virus he never had seen before. He quickly decided to do an autopsy on the body we had found in the woods not far from the school. That's when the paramedic came in.

"She had just come back from trying to assist a man who had gotten into a car wreck. The man had bit her out of a wild rage and was thrown into a holding cell. We all thought it was odd, but didn't really think about it at the time. About an hour later she collapsed and the flood of calls came in. People were calling in reporting that the dead were coming back to life and attacking them. An old lady had called in and said her husband had been bitten and died, but then rose from the dead and had ripped their son apart who was visiting. At first we couldn't believe the reports until the paramedic came back to life and killed a couple of the detectives.

"We did our best to set up barricades and save those who were still alive, but those damn monsters were too great for any of us. The Chief had called the Army and let them know of the situation, but they told us that the area was going to be quarantined and for us to barricade ourselves in. By that point the holding cells were overflowing with what were once people and there was no where to go. One by one we were killed off and in front of our eyes we witnessed the city become hell in itself. By the very late hours of night it was just the Chief, me, and a couple of others alive. Chief went mad though and took a bunch of weapons for himself and disappeared. He suddenly began to hunt us down one by one like we were livestock.

"I hid until I heard him screaming for mercy. Something got him and I knew it would be my turn next. I've been here ever since; thinking I was the sole survivor. I'm surprised and very glad to see you kids still alive and kicking."

"We're just as surprised as you are, sir." Renee said.

Sheriff began to hand out supplies then. During this process Ian walked over to where I was and rubbed my back while softly kissing the back of my head. It helped me to relax a little from the chaos of the current situation. When the Sheriff had finished handing out supplies he sat back down in his spot and gave us some tips.

"If you want some more supplies I suggest you to head over to Pamida and see what you can pick up there. It wasn't looted from what I last knew and that's only spot in the area where you'll be able to pick up gun shells. They even have M4 casings just for us. Those are hidden in the worker's room though."

"Aren't you coming with us?" Sammi asked.

Sheriff gave her a small smile before responding, "I need to stay here incase more survivors come and need help. My job is to protect and serve; I won't abandon my post. The Army is threatening to shoot off another EMT missile soon. The radio we have here is EMT proof so I still get the radio signals from them."

That's when the ventilation grate above his head smashed open. We all jumped back except for him. A long slimy pick tongue flew down then and wrapped itself around the Sheriff's neck. He screamed in agony as the tugging began. In one single thrust the head was ripped off of the body and was flung across the room. Sheriff was dead and if we didn't start to move we would be too.

"Run!" I screamed bolting out of the door.

Time seemed to freeze as we ran away from the horror we had just seen. Behind me were the others and whatever had just attacked us. Ian moved way faster than I was and as he sprinted past his hand reached out and grabbed my arm. He was moving so fast that I felt that my feet weren't even half of time touching the ground. When the door was reached Ian in one swift kick kicked the door down. I rushed out and the others followed before Ian and Drew slammed the door close.

"Start digging!" Sammi yelped as we began to dig our way out. The undead in the area had long since left and were focused on other areas. My body ached in agony as my hands dug deep into the soil. Yet as we reached the halfway point the beast had reached the door. Its body slammed hard into its metal frame, which caused the door to bend and break.

Ian leapt up at the hole was finally dug back out and we began to escape. He grabbed his M4 and aimed as it busted through the door. It looked like a human without skin or eyes and its brain was clearly visible. It had long bony claws coming out for its hands and feet and it had a long, slimy, pink tongue.

"Get to the SUV: now!" Ian barked.

"What the hell is that?" Sammi shrieked as she pulled herself out.

Drew and Renee tugged her along as I stayed behind with Ian. I pulled out my shotgun as the monster leapt into the air and aimed for Ian. Ian licked his lips, took in a deep breath, and then pulled the trigger. A loud blood curdling scream echoed through the air as the monster smashed into the ground; dead.

"Come on; let's go!" I said urging him to move. We both left then as the undead took notice.

We could see the others not too far away hopping into the Blazer and we knew we had to hurry. My heart was thumping through my chest like a tribal drum as I charged to the SUV. Ian swept me off of my feet and carried me to the vehicle the rest of the way. He threw the driver's door open and then tossed me in and I carefully rolled over his seat and the shifter to my seat.

"Let's burn some rubber!" Ian exclaimed slamming onto the accelerator. The smell of burnt rubber signaled that we had escaped successfully. I buckled myself in and took in a big breath of air before sighing. We were halfway done with our mission and the fun was only beginning.

R.E 9


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter _Six: _Assassin**

"What do you think that thing was?" I asked Ian.

Ian frowned while carefully navigating through the crowded streets. The undead were everywhere and at some points I had to hold my breath in from fear.

"I think it's from the virus that Sheriff was talking about." Ian explained.

Drew poked his head out a little from his seat surprised at Ian's statement. His eyes had a sinister look in them though as he agreed with him. Renee shook her head though and made a point.

"If this virus was what caused all of this then there's no way it would happen this quick. It would take days even weeks for something this horrific to spread across a small town of our size."

"What if it was a super virus?" I asked.

The Blazer momentarily went silent before Sammi chirped something.

"Do you think that man had something to do with it?"

"Yes, I think he had something to do with it, but to what extent I don't know." Ian replied.

I took one last look outside before changing the subject, "We need to plan a strategy for getting in and out of Pamida the best we can."

Renee sighed and rolled her window down, "We can have the Blazer back up and smash through the front entrance. It'll cause enough of a hole for us to get through and easy enough of one to block incase there are a bunch of zombies roaming about."

"Who wants guarding duties?" Ian asked.

"We will be very glad to do it." Renee and Drew announced.

"Well," I squeaked, "that settles it. Sammi, you're going to help Ian and I load stuff into the back of the Blazer, right?"

Sammi looked over and rolled her eyes, "Sure, I'll do whatever you want me to do."

I almost wanted to bark something back at her, but decided that it was best to not do anything and focus on the current objective. Ian drove in through the Plumb's parking entrance and cut into the Pamida parking lot. To our relief there were not too many zombies roaming around to cause a threat. It was going to be much easier than I thought it was going to be. The Blazer was parked for a second as I leapt out and ran through the entrance and shut the automated doors off. I quickly opened the doors just enough for the Blazer to slip through and Ian parked it and got out with the rest of the crew.

"Take the blunt weapons so you don't cause too much noise; these things are attracted to noise like a moth is to light." Ian instructed as he ran over to me. That's when the gun fire started up.

All of us dove to ground as the hail of bullets flew by and struck the entrance wall across from us. When I crawled over to open the second entrance door that led inside it was locked.

"Shit." Ian hissed.

I took the pistol and carefully aimed at the lock. It was blow off and the automated door slid open, but the gun's recoil made my arm rather sore.

"Who the hell do you think is inside?" Drew asked as the gunfire ceased momentarily.

I poked my head up and looked around before replying, "I have no idea. Whoever is inside is hidden pretty well within the store!"

The gunfire started up once more and once again we hunkered down. I became very impatient though rather quickly and decided to act. I sprang up and dove inside to the first display case and dove down behind it. There was so much gun fire I had no idea if I was being shot at until I saw a couple of bullets ricochet off of the case only inches away from my location. The gun fire ceased a second later and I looked over at Ian. He had a very eager expression on his face and I quickly signaled him over. The second he bolted over the firing started right back up and the display case we were hiding behind wasn't safe.

"How many do you think are here?" He asked.

I shrugged before taking another good look around, "I have no idea. There is more than one though."

Sammi ran out and took cover not too far away from us, "Where are they exactly shooting from?"

A smoke grenade flew and landed right beside her then. She began to gag from the fumes and had to get away from the smoke. Sammi rolled over and when she went to get up another hail storm of bullets came her way from what seemed like every direction.

"Who is firing at us?" Sammi shrieked in pure frustration.

Ian smirked as he stood up, "Let me see what I can do."

He left so fast that I never got the chance to grab one of his arms or legs. As he ran the gun fire whizzed past him and I was able to see where the firing was coming from. Ian dove down behind a shelf twenty feet away and gave me a thumb up. I smiled back and nodded to let him know that I was also okay.

"They got two gunners on the other side of the store by the looks of it; let me see if I can pick one of them off. Cover me." Ian explained.

I shook my head and pulled out my pistol, "If you're going then I'm going too."

"What am I supposed to do?" Sammi whined not too far away.

My head spun over to her general direction and I replied in the coldest way, "You're our distraction; have fun."

I could faintly hear her hiss in anger, but didn't think too much about it as Ian and I sprang up and bolted.

"Make sure Renee and Drew are okay!" Ian barked back as the gunfire started back up.

I dove down into the clothing department and Ian found himself hunkered down in the sporting goods aisle. Three smoke grenades were chucked over in my direction and I had to quickly find somewhere else to go.

"Give me some cover!" I yelped as I darted out.

Ian shot away as I dove down a couple of aisles away in the home furnishings aisle. My heart was pounding out of my chest from adrenaline. Ian had taken out someone because that person screamed in pain about ten feet from where I was.

"Finish them," Ian commanded, "we don't need prisoners."

I nodded over at him and ran into the next aisle where the person he plucked off was. To my shock it was a middle aged woman who was clutching at her stomach in despair as I walked over to her.

"I don't want to die; please don't shoot me!" She begged. Tears rolled down her dirt covered face into her blonde hair. When she went for her gun I quickly took the pistol and shot her in the face. There was a moment of silence before the gun fire started up once more.

"They killed Donna!" Somebody in the store cried out in anger.

I spun around and hunkered myself onto the ground as Ian made his way over to me. I didn't even know that I was shaking until he carefully stroked the side of my cheek and I jumped in shock.

"Easy there; its okay I'm right here." He whispered.

"Sorry." I squeaked as a tear fell down my cheek.

Ian looked into my eyes with a look of strength and nodded, "Don't give up on me now; we're almost done."

I nodded as he got up and then helped me up. Ian kissed me and all the fear I had left in an instant.

"We'll each run at them in a different route on the count of three, okay?" Ian explained.

My lips curled up into a small smile as I replied right back, "Alight."

"One." He whispered.

"Two."

There were shuffling noises all around us and I pondered if our charge was a good thing or not. Quickly I tip toed over to one side and wondered if Sammi was watching us.

"Three!"

Both of us bolted out then and faced whoever was shooting at us. We raced against one another while trying not to become a causality of bullet wounds from the enemy. Most of the gunfire was at Ian, but some of it was aimed at me. I assumed they were aiming at him more because he was the one that shot their friend first. Ian looked like a hunter the way he aimed and shot the M4 and I decided to pull out my shotgun. It was a lot lighter than it was before because of the adrenaline rush I was experiencing.

"How do I aim the shotgun?" I asked.

Ian quickly shouted back over to me, "Aim at the groin and pull the trigger for a chest shot!"

The second I saw someone poke their head out from behind a shelf I pulled the trigger. It missed, but a big hole in the area where I shot at made me smile a little. The recoil made my shoulder a little sorer, but it was the last of my worries as I ran into the aisle the head poked out of and blasted a young man in half almost. In a couple of seconds a couple of other people emerged from other aisles and was shot from Ian's M4. I reloaded the shotgun as quickly as I could, but in that short time period became the perfect target. Someone from behind sprang out and slammed me up against a shelving display and threw my shotgun to the ground. I was able to break free momentarily and run down the aisle, but in that moment Ian became distracted and a big burly man came up from behind and clocked him in the back of the head with the butt of a magnum. It shocked me so much that I stopped moving for a second, which allowed the other big man to slam me to the ground.

"Ian!" I gasped in fear.

His head slowly bobbed up and he wheezed my name back before it hit the cold tiled floor again. I was pulled up as two more men emerged from the aisles and I was introduced to the leader of the pack. He was the biggest of them all and carried a shotgun that I had never seen before. The way he walked up to me gave me the quick impression that he knew that he had complete control over the entire situation.

"I never thought a couple of teenagers like you two would show up here; let alone survive for so long." The man chuckled while he pulled out a cigar and lit it.

"I'm eighteen for your information!" I growled spitting at the ground.

The man that was holding me swiftly punched me in the stomach to shut me up.

"Eighteen is still pretty young age wise to me," The leader wheezed, "My name is Nick and you just killed four of my friends without giving any good reasons."

I couldn't reply back because of a coughing fit and Nick just stood there and laughed at me. Ian woke up then and tried to get up, but was swiftly kicked in the ribs. That's when I noticed the gash on the right side of his forehead.

"Don't you dare hit him!" I coughed.

I knew that Sammi wasn't too far hiding; waiting for the perfect moment to strike. I was just hoping she would strike sooner than later. Nick strolled over to me and with one of his dirt covered hands lifted my chin and examined me. He looked rather pleased at what he saw.

"You seem like a very strong fighter," Nick noted, "what are you doing with a punk like this kid?"

"I'm her boyfriend!" Ian barked as one of the man's steel-toed boots stomped onto his back and held him in place.

Nick chuckled a little to himself then as he blew a puff of smoke in my face. I didn't flinch a single inch as he did.

"She doesn't need a man who can't protect her." Nick said walked over to Ian.

I gritted my teeth together as Nick bent down to stare into Ian's eyes.

"You're weak, cocky, and a waste of space in my eyes; kiddo." Nick stated standing back up and walking back over to me. One of his hands grabbed my right breast and squeezed it tightly. I yelped in shock as he smirked and put out his cigar.

"Get away from her; now!" Ian screamed as Nick's hand glided down to my inner thigh.

Nick spun his head back and smirked, "What are you going to do about it?"

I could see Ian try to get up, but the boot crushed down on his ribcage to the point that his ribs would give away at any second. "You can have me in exchange for her going free." Ian choked out.

"Don't do it." I cried out.

Ian looked up at me and stared deep into my reddish-brown eyes with the saddest look on his face. I shed a couple of tears as Nick turned his head to face me. His eyes were so empty and cold that my body shivered just from glancing into them.

"How about instead of exchanging her free we exchange you to walk free instead? We need to have someone to keep our numbers from dwindling anyways." Nick bargained.

_Let him make the exchange._

For once I listened to the voice in my head and did what it said.

"No, I won't let you-"

"I'll do it." I muttered as Nick leaned in and playfully kissed my neck. The answer surprised both of them.

Ian looked terrified as the man pulled him up, "Jaz, what are you doing?"

Nick smiled and kissed my neck once more, "I guess she wants to live more than anything else. Please assist this man to the door while I become acquainted with our new team member."

_Trust me, hun. I know what I'm doing._

The second Nick's one assistant began to drag Ian out Sammi shot the display case behind their heads and everyone except Nick, the assistant that was holding me, and I hit the ground. Nick looked at his other men and barked orders at them.

"Go and kill whoever is shooting at us!"

Two of his men took off while one of them pinned Ian up against the wall and the other held me. Nick went in to kiss my lips when I displayed my martial art skills. I swung my knee up into his groin and Nick tumbled to the ground while the other two assistants struggled to not let either of us go. The one that was holding me did though and I dug my nails deep into his arms and he pulled away in shock. I spun around and uppercut the man in the jaw, which knocked the man out. The guy who was holding Ian back had no idea what to do until I kicked him in the ribcage. That sent him to the ground where Ian pulled his M4 out and shot him dead in the face. I spun around to deal with Nick when Sammi's screams caught both Ian and I off guard.

"Sammi!" I screamed bolting over to her. Ian ran with me; picking my shotgun up and tossing it over to me in the process. Along the way we found one of the men sent to kill her was dead. When we did find her though we were shocked to the core at what we saw.

"Shit!" Ian barked as he aimed the M4.

Sammi was pinned up against a store fixture being raped as Drew stood there with a blank expression across his face. It made me so mad that I was able to pull the pistol out and shoot the attacker before Ian could. It stuck the man in the leg and as he fell to the ground Ian shot him in the chest; killing him instantly.

_Turn around; now!_

Both Ian and I spun around at the same time with our guns aimed and made Nick freeze in his tracks. He knew that he was out gunned and out numbered. Nick's body shook as I paraded over to him and took his weapons along with his ammo and pushed him to the floor.

"Get the fuck out of here before I blow your brains out." I hissed aiming the pistol at his face.

Nick got up and bolted out of the store like a rabbit would out of its hole. Our attention was focused on Sammi and Drew then. Ian stomped over to Drew and pushed him to the ground while aiming the M4 at his face.

"What the hell was that about, Drew?" He asked.

Drew shook as I ran over to Sammi and hugged her. She was crying so hard that she collapsed to the floor.

"I swear; I didn't mean for this to happen!" Drew shrieked.

"Just leave him alone," I barked helping Sammi up, "we got bigger fish to fry. Let's go help Renee out and set up and barricade so we can load the Blazer up."

Ian glared down at Drew for a second before running off to help Renee. Drew just stayed on the ground and shook as Sammi and I rushed to help aid Ian. Renee was in the middle of bashing a zombie's skull in when Ian leapt over and finished the job.

"You guys have good timing." She sighed as she handed the metal pipe over to me.

I gladly took it and gave her the orders, "Go and find some big heavy tables we can set up against the doors."

"What about the gouge on Ian's head? If you let that bleed much longer he'll pass out form blood loss." Renee explained.

I growled as I smashed another skull in, "Go and have Drew get the tables with Sammi then as you stitch Ian's head up."

Renee nodded as everyone left the entryway. The number of zombies began to increase a little as the search began. Maybe they could smell the blood form the bodies we had shot from earlier and wanted a taste. None of them were going to get that chance quite yet though as I continued to smash skulls in. Almost three whole minutes had passed by before Sammi limped in with a heavy table and placed it up against one side of the small gap. Drew rushed in with another and sat it up against the first table, but propped it up against the wall so it didn't budge. They repeated it with the other side and even did it with the bottom of the Blazer so no crawlers could slip through. I ran over to Ian then who was in the middle of getting his head stitched up.

"You did lose a lot of blood." I said walking over to him and plopping myself down beside him. His shirt was covered in blood to the point that it had soaked through to his skin.

He shrugged and took a pair of scissors that Renee had beside her and cut the shirt off, "I fixed my fashion dilemma. How's Sammi doing?"

"She's still a little shaken up." I replied, "Drew is worse than her though. He looks like he's about to lose it."

Renee shook her head as she closed Ian's wound up, "He can't be losing it that quickly. He's the guy that fantasized about the zombie apocalypse for some time."

"It's not the zombies he's shaken about." I whispered.

She finished stitching Ian's head up before responding, "What is it from then?"

"Drew ran to help Sammi, but froze when he saw her being raped." Ian admitted.

Renee froze and looked over at where Drew was. She started to shake a little before I helped to sit her down. Ian cut the string and got up as the others walked over. Drew froze when he saw Renee look up at him in fear.

"Why would you let them hurt Sammi, Drew?"

Renee's question hit Drew hard and we all could see him shake a little from fear, "I didn't have a clue on what to do because I pictured the man raping you and I got scared."

"No you didn't." She spat out while getting up herself.

"I did too!" He shouted back walking up to her. His eyes said something different though.

_Stop the madness now._

I aimed the pistol up at the ceiling and pulled the trigger once. Everyone jumped from shock as I put the pistol away and stomped over to where the food was at. I gave all of them a dirty look as I walked away.

"Help me load things into the Blazer so we can get out of here." I commanded.

Everyone pitched in then to unload unneeded items and load things we did need. It only took a little over fifteen minutes, but it seemed to take way less time than that. When we had finished I made the crew help to make a quick dinner before we took off. Ian helped me to make a salad as the others made sandwiches. We were far enough away from the others to have a private discussion of what happened earlier.

"Did you see the way Drew looked at Renee?" Ian asked while washing a head of lettuce in a bowl near by.

I nodded over at him while chopping up tomatoes, "Of course I did, hun. He looked like he viewed Renee as and object; not a human being. What do you think made him freeze up?"

"I think he froze because he was seeing something taking place that he always wanted to do to Renee."

I shook my head in disagreement, "That can't be true, or he would have done it already."

Ian began to rip the leaves off and throw them into a different clean bowl, "I don't know; maybe he's waiting for the perfect moment to strike."

Quickly I had to try and change the subject before I panicked, "Did you see all of the new weapons we picked up?"

"Of course I did." Ian murmured, "You're very lucky to find the shotgun that you did."

"Why?" I asked.

It's called the Striker," He explained, "the gun is a very illegal one because it can fire multiple shots at once and can carry up to twelve shots in its drum barrel."

"Really?" I squeaked in excitement as I finished cutting the tomatoes up.

"Yea." he replied as I carried the tomatoes over and put them into the bowl. As I dumped them in Ian wrapped his hands around my waist and kissed my cheek before walking away to check up on the others. I smiled while opening a bag of shredded cheese and dumping it into the bowl. Ian was really showing that he cared after all. A minute later he walked back over with a worried look on his face.

"What's up?" I asked kissing him.

Ian shook his head and explained, "Drew is sitting in the corner of the store by himself with his new gun in hand. Renee went to go talk to him, but he didn't even look up at her to acknowledge her existence."

"Maybe you're the guy that he needs to talk to." I said.

"No way; he hates me." Ian protested.

I cupped his face in my hands and looked deep into his eyes, "Can you please try at least? Do it for me."

Ian kissed me before walking away to where Drew was, "I'll try, but just for you, okay?"

"Thank you, hun." I squeaked as he left.

Quickly I made my way over to Sammi and Renee who were finishing up on the sandwiches. Both of them looked just as worn out as I did. We all deserved a long night worth of rest. As I plopped the salad down on the table both girls looked up at me and smiled.

"Is Ian going to talk to Drew?" Sammi asked.

I nodded as I helped arrange the sandwiches onto a platter, "Yea, I told him to try his best since those two don't exactly get along."

Renee looked up and shrugged, "If Ian can't do it, then no one can."

After we arranged the food it was time to eat. I was sent to go get the boys, but I really tried my best to have Renee go and get them instead. As I walked over to the boys I could hear Ian explaining to Drew about how he felt when Nick was fondling with me.

"I wanted to kill that bastard, but if I didn't keep my cool like Jaz did we might not be here at this moment talking like brothers. Renee means the world to you; I understand, but if something like what happened to Sammi does occur again I need you to think clearly and do what needs to be done."

"I'm really sorry, Ian." Drew admitted, "I didn't think a situation like this would ever happen and when it did I froze up. I can promise you here right now that it will never happen again."

"Welcome back to the team, Drew." Ian said while patting Drew's back.

I walked over like I never heard anything and let the boys know that it was supper time. Drew bolted off like a hungry wolf would for its prey while Ian and I stayed behind a minute, so we could discuss what had happened.

"He's losing it, Jaz."

"I know, but what can we do?" I asked as he kissed me.

"What do you think he was truly thinking when he found Sammi?"

I shrugged as Ian held me tightly, "I don't want to even think about that right now. I just pray that nothing like that happens again."

"We have to work as a team, but if we have someone on the team who poses a risk then what is there to do?"

As I looked up into Ian's eyes Sammi shouted over for us to get our butts to the table.

"You know about the exchange earlier?"

Ian stopped and raised an eyebrow, "Yea, what exactly made you want to do it?"

"A voice in the back of my mind told me to do it." I explained.

He nodded and kissed the top of my head then, "Come on, let's get a bite to eat before Sammi beats us with a frying skillet."

I smiled as we darted over to the crew and sat down. Everything looked so good that nobody said grace because we all dug in. I stuffed myself on the food and lay back while one by one, the rest of the group did the same thing. Ian was the last one to finish, but he ate the most.

"Do we want to head out now?" He asked while wiping his mouth with a napkin.

I got up and stretched, "I don't see why we can't, but we need to get the barriers down and get those zombies away from the Blazer."

"I got an idea." Sammi squeaked.

Renee looked over and smiled, "What would your idea be?"

Sammi smirked and got up, "We can use the back entrance, some around, and go on a zombie skull smashing marathon. I need two of us to stay here though and get the barriers torn down."

Before either of the boys could volunteer to go zombie smashing us girls did and we quickly left the store through the back entry way where Nick left. He was no where to be seen though, which was a blessing.

"Time to test this katana one of those bastards had." I chuckled pulling the new weapon out. The blade glistened in the sun perfectly as the girls each pulled out their own weapons. Sammi had two pistols out and Renee had a metal crowbar. As we made it to the entrance; Sammi threw a flash grenade over to the mob. The minute it went off their focus was on the light and not the store's entrance. Sammi was also the first one to kill a zombie from her pistols. The sound of gunfire made the mob flock over to where we were at, but with the katana in hand most of them never knew what hit them.

"Aim for the head!" I barked swinging away.

The boys worked furiously to get the barriers undone and they were soon in the Blazer coming our way. Ian rolled his window down and popped a couple of shots off with the M4 before we hopped into the Blazer and took off.

"Now that's what I call teamwork!" I shouted while high-fiving the crew. We were celebrating our first major survival event since we woke up this morning.

Ian kissed me and pulled onto the main road then, "Time to head back to my house."

I put the katana away and yawned, "Maybe we'll be able to sleep for once."

_Don't get too comfy; there are more challenges ahead of you._

"I hope your parents are okay." Sammi squeaked over to Ian.

He frowned and then shrugged his shoulders, "I hope so too."

The words that echoed throughout my head made me worried to the core.

R.E 7


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter _Seven: _Lonely Boy**

The sun hadn't even started to set when we reached Lakewood Rd. The Blazer had become dead silent because we were all nervous of what we were going to see at Ian's house. I was able to hold his free hand while he drove until we reached his driveway. Everything looked the same as it always did. That was a good sign. Yet there was no movement inside of the house though as Ian pulled the Blazer up and parked it.

"I think you and me should go inside and check it out before anyone else decides to head in." I whispered.

He nodded as he turned the Blazer off, "I agree with you on that completely. Let's go."

"Can we at least help Sammi inside because of her leg injury?" Renee asked.

I spun around and nodded, "I don't care, but if there's something inside and it attacks her I'm not going to hesitate when it comes to killing her."

Those words shocked the three in the back as Ian and I hopped out and ran to the front door.

"The garage is closed, which means they're both here." Ian whispered over.

I pulled my Beretta out and nodded, "They must have invited my parents over after all."

Ian opened the front door and rushed in. Nothing.

"Shit." I hissed looking around. I spotted the small blood trail that led to their bedroom.

I looked over at Ian, but his eyes told me everything and I didn't speak a single word as we quietly tip toed over to the door. It was slightly ajar. I rushed ahead of him as I slammed it open, but there was nobody there. The bed was a bloody mess though. I walked over to it and quietly investigated it.

"Somebody tore the sheets to pieces, hun." I squeaked.

"Let's tell the others what-"

Before Ian could finish his statement, a hand flew out from underneath the bed and wrapped around my ankle. In a split second I took the katana out and cut the hand off from its owner's arm. It fell off and an animalistic moan rumbled from underneath the bed. I stumbled back and fell to the ground as the monster crawled out from the bed and stood up. It was Ian's step-dad and he did not look very happy, or social.

"Ian!" I cried out as the monster walked over to me.

Ian was shaking too much though to shoot, or that's what I thought. Right before the beast crashed down on top of me he fired the perfect head shot and the body plopped hard to the ground. I screamed in shock as Ian ran over to comfort me. All that was left of his step-dad's body was the body itself that no longer had a head and was missing a hand. That's when the faint cries could be heard from the bathroom.

"Mom!" Ian screamed as he quickly got up. The bathroom door was locked so he kicked it down and bolted in. I quickly got up myself and ran in. There curled up in the bottom of the luxury tub was Ian's mom. I started to cry then from shock as he leaned down and swept her up.

"You're all still alive!" She wept as I hugged her tightly. That's when I noticed the bandage on her arm.

I smiled while the tears rolled down my cheeks, "Of course we are; we're not that easy to kill off!"

She coughed a little before replying back, "Where are the others at?"

"They're outside; let's take you over to the couch so they can see you." Ian explained as he rushed her into the living room. All of the crew rushed in when they saw Ian carrying his mom.

"Kathy!" Sammi squeaked as she was helped into the house. She was seated beside Ian's mom while I pulled the others aside to discuss our plans.

"We should unload first and then take care of the mess in the bedroom." I said once we were outside by the Blazer.

"Who wants to do that?" Ian asked.

Renee looked over at Drew and they both nodded at the same time, "We'll clean up the scene, but if we all pitch in with unloading the Blazer we can get it done in ten minutes, I think."

"Good thinking, Renee. Thank you so much for jumping right in when you don't need to." I chirped as I gave her a huge hug.

She rubbed my back until we separated, "Let's get things done!"

All of us quickly unloaded the Blazer and put it into the house. Kathy pointed at the shelves and places where the items went while Renee and Drew began the clean-up work.

"How were you able to get all of that food?" Ian's mom asked as we put away the last of the groceries.

Ian frowned and then went outside to grab the weapons. I lowered my head in respect and ran outside with him. His hands were both clenched up into tight fists.

"We can't just lie to her you know." I whispered as he grabbed all of the guns that he could carry.

Ian stopped and looked deep into my eyes before responding, "Do you think she'll want to hear that we had to kill people just to get that food or these weapons? Do you think she'll want to hear how we watched in terror as one of your best friends died and became a zombie?"

I shook my head as I grabbed the duffle bags that were full of ammo, "You don't have to go into details with her, sweetie. I just don't want her thinking that-"

"The world is still going on perfectly fine while we struggle to stay alive?"

"That wasn't exactly what I was trying to say."

"What then?" He barked tossing the weapons back into the Blazer, "What are you going to tell her?"

Neither of us noticed how loud we were yelling at each other until we heard Kathy coughing and spun over to the big picture window where she was looking through. My heart sank as I saw her frown and shake her head in disbelief. It was just like the time she caught us arguing back at the end of my junior year about Ian sending nude pictures of himself to his ex.

…

"You're trying to tell me that you didn't have a choice when you sent those pictures?"

Ian looked over at me and barked right back, "You don't understand what happened, Jaz! She was going to kill herself if I didn't send them!"

I remember shaking my head and beginning to cry, "Ian, you promised me that this whole thing was over with and we could move on. Why did you lie to me?"

As I fell to the ground Ian's mom opened the door and saw me crash to the cement floor of the garage.

"What did you do to her?" She screamed running over to me.

"Nothing happened." Ian hissed walking away in anger.

I recalled her helping me into the house where I told her and Ian's step-dad what happened. They were in as much shock as I was. When Ian came back into the house; both of them wouldn't speak to him until he apologized and made things right.

"She shouldn't have to go through all of this shit just to be with you!" His step-dad barked as Ian looked over in despair.

"Ian, Jaz has been there for you more than any of your other friends and you decide to do something so stupid? I wish you acted like your old self and pulled your head out of your ass every so often!" His mom screamed.

"I didn't mean to-"

"Stop lying to her!" Kathy hissed, "You might lose the one person who really loves you and this is how you're going to react; by trying to make an excuse for your poor behavior? Pitiful. If she left you right now I would have no feeling of sympathy for you."

"STOP YELLING AT HIM!" I screamed flinging myself off of the couch and landing over by the front entrance, "I can't handle this anymore. All that has happened to me in this entire 'relationship' is my heart being ripped open by the one person who I thought I could trust. I want to go home; now."

…

"Mom, wait!" Ian cried as he picked the weapons back up and bolted into the house, "I can explain everything!"

I shuffled behind him and carefully sat the ammo down when I entered the house. She looked so angry that I thought that she was going to get off of the couch and knock Ian out.

"What is your problem now?" She asked.

Ian shook his head and kicked his shoes off, "We got into a silly argument, Mom."

"About what?" She spat back.

I sprinted in and ran over to her, "We need to talk, Kathy."

She looked over at me and shook her head slowly, "Ian, what was the argument about?"

My eyes looked over at him and I frowned as he explained, "We had to kill people to get that food, Mom. Today we watched one of our friends become one of those things and there was nothing we could do as he screamed bloody murder for mercy. When we went to the City Hall and found a survivor his head was taken clean off by a demon. That's why we were arguing; we didn't want to tell you what had happened today while you were here all alone."

Her eyes filled with tears as she stumbled over to him and gave him a hug, "I'm so sorry I asked, but I-"

"Mom," Ian whispered as he pulled enough away to look into her eyes, "do not apologize for anything. I was the one to start arguing where it wasn't needed at."

Kathy coughed once more, but as she did her body weakened to the point that she couldn't stand any longer. Ian swept her up carefully and laid her onto the couch as he told her to relax while we finished things up around the house. Kathy nodded as she wiped the blood off of her mouth slowly.

We rushed out to grab the weapons and bring them in as Sammi socialized with his mom. Before we walked over to her Ian pulled me aside into the laundry room and closed the door behind him. The expression in his eyes was that of fear. Without any hesitation I walked up to him and wrapped my arms around his waist and I buried my head into his chest.

"She's bitten." He said.

I paused and looked up at him, "There's no way-"

"Jaz, remember what happened to Tristan earlier? He had the same symptoms as my mom does right now. We can help her not to suffer like he did though."

"How?" I asked while I softly kissed his chest.

It took him a minute to respond, "She has a ton of sleeping medications in her room. If we can grind those up and put them into a beverage we can put her to sleep so she doesn't have to suffer anymore."

"What if it makes the virus spread faster though?" I squeaked.

"At least she won't be in pain any longer."

"We can do this," I explained, "but we need Renee to help us with the dosage and we need her to want something to drink so we can put the medications into the drink."

Ian nodded as he kissed me slowly; enjoying my warm, tender, soft lips, "Alright, I'll ask my mom if she's thirsty and you can go and get Renee for me, okay?"

"Okay." I said as he opened the door and allowed me to walk out.

Kathy, when I looked over at her, looked even paler than she did a couple of minutes ago. Her body shook as she coughed once more and Sammi helped by wiping the blood off from her pale, cold lips.

"Mom," Ian said as I walked across the room into the bedroom, "Do you want something to drink?"

I entered the bedroom as Kathy croaked 'yes'. Renee and Drew had finished with wrapping Ian's stepfather's body up. Both of them looked up with blank expressions on their faces as I walked over to Renee and bent down beside her while avoiding the puddles of blood and head pieces.

"Ian wants you to help him put Kathy into coma by using her sleeping medications." I whispered to Renee as Drew began to mop the blood off of the floor.

He froze from shock as Renee agreed to help. She asked where the meds were at and I pointed to the small coffee table by the bed. We both took a couple of bottles and left the room while Drew continued to clean the room up. We hurried over to Ian who was at the fridge grabbing a pitcher of tea from the fridge.

"These were all we could find." Renee explained.

He nodded as Kathy called me over without even realizing what was taking place. As I rushed over Sammi glared up at me as if I was intruding something important. Kathy's eyes were full of fear and I knew exactly what she was going to ask, but instead I asked a question.

"Did Mike bite you?"

Her eyes told me everything that I needed to know, but she told me what happened before I could tell her not to worry. The house grew very silent as she used all of her strength to sit up and look directly at me.

"We went to bed a little after one. Your parents had left an hour before and we were very tired from staying up later than normal. Mike was complaining about his stomach hurting and him smelling meat. So I gave him pain killers and we fell asleep soon after. The next morning I got up and made breakfast for just the two of us. I walked in to wake him up, but he was buried under the sheets pretty good."

"I shook him a little and he moaned, so I decided to let him sleep a little longer. After eating breakfast I went back in and he attacked me. His skin was a nasty color and by the looks of it he had gnawed his lips off."

"He attacked you just like that man attacked me yesterday; right?" Sammi asked.

Kathy looked over at her and gave a very faint nod before continuing on.

"It shocked me so much that when Mike bit me I did not respond at first until I realized he was doing so. I had to upper cut him and he fell back, then I made a mad dash into the bathroom and locked both doors. He tried to get in, but after a while he stopped and after I bandaged my arm up I fell asleep. Jaz," she croaked suddenly grabbing my arm with tears running down her cheeks, "Am I going to end up like Mike?"

Before I could answer Ian ran over with the glass of tea and handed it over to her insisting that she should take a nap. Kathy argued and then drank all of her tea. The minutes ticked by slowly as Renee went back into the bedroom and the rest of us sat down and talked to Kathy about past memories. Of course Kathy couldn't stop talking about Ian and me.

"Do you think it'll last?" I asked her.

She smiled faintly as the drugs began to take effect, "I hope so; you've two have been close since Ian arrived back at the end of his sophomore year."

Ian smiled and kissed his mom on the cheek as he took the empty glass away from her, "I never thought I would meet a girl that I would keep running to."

A light bulb lit up in his mom's head then, "Ian there's a package on the table for Jaz; can you grab it and bring it over here?"

"Sure." He chirped as he took a small packaged bag off from the island counter and shuffled over to me.

The second I laid my eyes on it I knew exactly what it was and was more than glad to open it. My eyes filled with tears as I took my grandma's restored class ring out of the package and slipped it onto my right middle finger; on the finger next to my class ring. It was pure gold and glowed with majestic beauty that I had only dreamed about in my wildest of dreams. Of course everyone wanted to see it and it was passed around until everyone got a chance to see it.

"I didn't know that your grandma also came from Montague." Kathy yawned as she carefully fell back onto the couch.

I nodded as I slipped the prize back onto its proper finger, "Yea, she graduated back in '64. My dad told me I act a lot like she did when she was my age."

"That's cool." Sammi sighed.

When I looked over at her she gave me a dirty look and then got up and went downstairs. Sammi made sure to slam the door on her way down the stairs. The second she was out of range Kathy gave me a lecture on leadership. As went to stand up and go after her Kathy lightly grabbed my hand, so I decided to stay sitting.

"Has she been acting like this the whole time?" Kathy asked.

"She's been treating all of us very poorly." I explained with a small sigh in the start of my response.

Kathy did a slight nod and then yawned before responding, "You don't deserve to be treated so poorly, hun. Even if you're the leader of a small group you need to be proud and show who you are. Fear is what destroys a team."

"How can I do that then without overdoing it?" I asked.

"You will know if you're overdoing it, Jaz."

"Okay."

"Ian, can you grab my jewelry box out from my room next?"

Ian smiled and hurried in and out of the room with the antique looking box. Kathy had Ian open it and she pulled out two necklaces from it. One was a Victorian styled cross with aquamarine jewels in it and the other was a onyx beaded chunk necklace with ruby beads and a crystal heart dangling down in the middle of it.

"A good leader deserves to be awarded and recognized for her accomplishments."

A couple of tears rolled down my eyes as Ian put each necklace on around my neck. That's when everything went to hell.

Without any signs Kathy began to violently scratch her arms as if she had just gone through a patch of poison ivy. Ian helped by holding her arms down as I asked what was going on.

"My arms are itching so badly right now. I have never felt so itchy before!" She squealed in pain.

"We don't have anything to help relieve the itching, Mom." Ian explained, "All I can do is hold you down until you're not itchy any-"

"Why do I smell meat? IT smells so good!" She cried out, suddenly throwing Ian to the ground.

"Kathy, stay on the couch!" I shrilled as she jumped up.

Her eyes were bloodshot and a small amount of drool began to drip down from her opened mouth. Without any hesitation I darted to her and slammed her small body to the ground as Ian slowly got up from being thrown. I could hear her breath slow down the second we hit the wooden flooring and I soon realized that Kathy had been knocked out from the hit.

"Jesus." I gasped as Ian darted over.

"Are you okay?" He asked while helping me up.

My body shook a little as I replied, "I am, but I don't know if your mum is."

"She's asleep now; that's a good thing. The infection must have been worse in her than we thought it was. I'm very thankful neither of us got hurt when she attacked." Ian explained.

I looked down at her unconscious body and frowned, "What can we do now?"

"We wait."

"Why?"

He turned me around to so I faced him and he explained, "We need to make sure she's really unconscious and not playing it. Renee and Drew will keep us posted."

Just then Renee and Renee emerged from the bedroom, finished with cleaning and also shocked with what had just happened. When Renee asked if Kathy was okay Ian filled both of them in and then I decided it was time to rest for a bit.

"I will be heading downstairs to get some rest for a bit if none of you mined." I yawned while looking up at Ian.

Both Renee and Drew nodded and then headed off to the sun porch to dump the buckets and clean the other supplies. Ian hugged me before sitting down on the couch and flicking the TV on.

"Hey," he chuckled, "it still works!"

I kissed him before heading downstairs, "I'll see you later, hun."

Everybody looked exhausted. By the time I reached Ian's bed I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Quickly I stripped down to my bikini and flopped onto the bed. It felt so soft and soothing that I quickly fell asleep and dreamt of a good memory from my past.

…

"Hey, Ian, can we talk?"

"Sure."

"Are sure tonight is a good night to sneak out, Ian?"

"Jaz, you have to trust me on this. Browand doesn't care where we are as long as we are up for breakfast in the morning."

"I just don't want to get caught; that's my concern."

"Can you trust me on this?"

"Of course I can."

"Then please trust me with this."

"Alright I will try my best."

"Jaz?"

"Yes, Ian?"

"Do you still have feelings for me?"

Yea, do you still have feelings for me?"

"Of course."

"Then I'll see you tonight after everyone goes to bed."

…

"Wake up, sweetie."

When I opened my eyes I was very delighted to see Ian looking down at me without his glasses on. I smiled when he very gently rested one of his hands on my hips and the other stroked my back. He looked pretty happy himself.

"How long did I sleep?" I asked quietly.

Ian kissed me before responding, "You slept for a hour and a half; I only slept fifty minutes."

"Why is that?"

"I watched an episode of my favorite anime."

I chuckled lightly as I used my long skinny fingers to trace his outline, "I feel a lot better now."

It surprised me a little when I discovered he had abs. "Have you been working out a lot lately?"

Ian gave me his signature grin and sighed, "Maybe just a little."

"Well," I sighed back, "it looks and feels pretty damn good."

Without saying a single word Ian rolled and crawled on top of me and began to kiss my lips. My heart started to beat heavily as I kissed back and clawed lightly into his back. All he wore was his swim trunks and as our bodies touched I could feel the jolts of electricity between us. Our bodies pressed tighter together and it was getting harder to stop by each passing second. That is, until Sammi busted into the room with an angry look on her face.

"What the hell are you two doing?" She hissed.

We looked like two deer frozen in headlights as she walked over and glared at us. She pointed one of her index fingers at Ian and sneered, "Your mom is upstairs dying and you rather do this instead of paying respect to her?"

A big smirk appeared on Ian's face as he waved her over to the bed, "We can make this a party of three if you really insist, Sammi."

"You're a sick bastard, Palmer!" Sammi gasped as she quickly fled the room.

When she was gone I sighed quietly to Ian, "We need to put that girl on a leash."

He smiled down at me and winked, "Maybe a shock collar would do justice."

Both of us got up then and got dressed. Ian after he put his glasses on discovered that it was a quarter after eight. It was time to head upstairs and prepare Kathy for burial. Right as he went to put his shirt on I stopped him.

"Let's just go. Sammi is about to go mad. You look better without a shirt on anyways" I explained as I threw my shorts on.

"Thanks," He blushed as he tossed his shirt onto the bed.

I blindly fixed my hair as we climbed the stairs and when we reached the top Renee and Drew rushed over to deliver the news. Both of them looked rather worried.

"Glad you're both awake," Renee explained, "Kathy is in a deep coma and I believe that's because the virus advancing at a very dangerous rate. We need to take care of her very soon."

"May we take a look?" I asked.

"Go ahead," Drew warned, "But don't take her current condition to heart."

Both Ian and I walked over to the couch and peered down over the side of it. It was quite clear that the virus was taking over. Kathy's skin had begun to change color and the flesh at some areas was starting to rot. Her fingernails were starting to become long sharp claws. Yet, even with all of these transformations taking place she looked peaceful in an eerie sense.

"Why is she bright red?" Ian asked.

Drew walked over and shrugged, "I think the virus if left alone long enough mutates. Jaz, do you remember that monster at the police station?"

"Of course, why?" I squeaked in concern.

"I believe that was an advanced form of the virus and how it can mutate the body to extreme lengths if given enough time and space." Drew replied, "I think Kathy is showing signs of this."

I looked up at Ian who was shaking his head in disbelief. Quickly I grabbed one of his hands and rubbed it from concern.

"We better take care of business then, Jaz." Sammi snorted as she emerged from the bathroom. That was when I snapped.

As she left the room the garage I briskly walked over; clenching both of my fists up as I did so. By the time she had spun around I was right behind her, so I was easily able to grab her around and neck and pick her up. Out of rage I slammed her hard into the wall and glared deep into her vivid green eyes. She was shaking a little from fear.

"Now listen to me, bitch." I explained, "I am giving you one chance to stop acting like a princess and to act like a part of a group. If you fail to comply I am not afraid to kill you, or even better yet strand in town with those monsters and have you fend for yourself. Do you understand?"

When I had finished she was too frightened to say anything, so I threw her to the ground and got right back to business. I walked over to Ian and rested myself up against him.

"Everybody may say something about Kathy, but after that we need to burry her in the backyard next to Mike. Is that alright with everyone here?" I asked.

The crew nodded their heads in agreement and Drew volunteered to go first.

"All I can say about your mom, Ian, is that she was the most loving person I had ever met. Thanks for letting us get to know her."

Ian smiled and went next, "Mom I'm going to miss you a lot more than you will ever know. You showed everyone here compassion and love; for some it was more than they had experienced at their homes. I wish with all my heart that you could be here right now, but I know that is not possible. I regret not being a better son to you."

He began to cry then and I hugged him as tightly as I could.

"She was quite an awesome adopted mom." I said.

He nodded and wiped the tears away from his face then, "Let's go bury my mother."

Renee and I rushed out the garage and grabbed the shovels as the others picked up Kathy and carried her outside through the front door. Renee and I took the sun porch door and quickly descended the stairs.

"Where did you bury Mike at?" I asked Renee.

"We buried him in front of the cherry tree." She explained.

When we reached the tree we made sure to dig the hole far enough away from Mike, so we didn't accidently uncover him. It took us forty-five minutes to dig up a hole and by then the others had arrived with Kathy's body. She was breathing very deeply. Slowly I took the katana out and began to raise the blade up into the air.

"She'll come back if I don't-"

"Its okay, Jaz. Go ahead and do what you need to do; we'll turn around so it's not so odd."

The crew spun around as I aimed. My eyes focused deeply on my target and my arms began to shake a little in sorrow. The katana was swung down and hit its mark; Kathy's neck. Quickly everyone spun back around and helped to take care of the body. It only took fifteen minutes to bury the body and by then it was ten- thirty.

"Let's head in and discuss our plans for tomorrow." I suggested.

"Can we set up base first?" Renee asked.

"Sure, we can load clips during the discussion." I said as we headed back inside.

The mood had changed completely at that point and everyone knew what was going on around us was a serious matter that either meant life or death.

R.E 8


End file.
